Atapattu: From zero No 1 to hero No 1

MARAVAN ATAPATTU. COLOMBO, July 15: Where there is skill, there is a way. Maravan Atapattu's value-based innings under crisis yesterday a...

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MARAVAN ATAPATTU.

COLOMBO, July 15: Where there is skill, there is a way. Maravan Atapattu’s value-based innings under crisis yesterday against Pakistan his best at home proved two things: the extended faith reposed on him by the selectors and his self-belief.

But potential and promise have to be translated into productivity for acceptance. Atapattu’s remained dormant for an agonisingly long period, which, with the passage of time, would have only worsened.

Atapattu has his place in history — a place that is distinctly dubious. No specialist batsman has recorded more zeroes so early in Test history. Only Henry Olongo — a bowler with no batting pretensions — has a more blemished batting record to the start of his Test career.Atapattu’s two previous One-Day International (ODI) appearances at home yielded just four runs all against Australia as he did not get to bat against Zimbabwe the following year. In fact, in 22 ODI’s prior to the match against Pakistan yesterday, he has passed the 30-run mark in just six innings, and took six years to score his first half-century.

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But what really brought him ridicule was his foray in Test cricket. He made his debut against India at Chandigarh in 1990 and scored zero and zero. He then played against Australia at Colombo in 1992 and made zero and one. He came back to India for his third Test appearance in 1994 and recorded zero and zero at Ahmedabad. Atapattu, however, can seek solace from some of the great batsmen of past and present. Graham Gooch made two ducks each in a Test series while Mark Waugh, one of the greatest batsman today, recorded four blanks in a series.

Mohinder Amarnath’s slump came after phenomenal successes against Pakistan and West Indies and interspersed with his heroics in the 1983 World Cup which India won. Amarnath’s sequence of zeroes against West Indies resembled an area pin code one run in six innings!

Fortunately for Atapattu, nobody has embarrassed him by letting loose a duck when he has gone out to bat, as a practical joker did in Australia when Greg Chappell was suffering the pangs of `zero hour’ in his career.

But while Atapattu has begun to show encouraging results in one-dayers, his Test career is still in a shambles seven ducks and a highest score of 25 from 14 innings.

His technical exactitude is perfect, his temperament is not.

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“The problem has more to do with the mind. But Atapattu looks more positive and is also enjoying the game than he had done earlier, which is showing in his scores,” says a pleased Sri Lankan skipper Arjuna Ranatunga, under whom Atapattu also plays club cricket.

Atapattu bring a touch of classical sanity in a batting line-up that is known for calculated savagery from the likes of Sanat Jayasuriya, Aravinda de Silva, Romesh Kaluwitharana and Ranatunga.

Rumesh Ratnayake, the former Sri Lankan paceman, in picking Atapattu’s contribution of 80 against Pakistan yesterday, in which he held the innings together, recognised the intrinsic worth of the innings more than the numerical value of Jayasuriya’s contribution (33 and 4-49). The Man of the Match award may just be the impetus Atapattu needed in his career. An ugly duckling had turned swan.