Lankans attack on brilliant variety

Impressed, and maybe envious of the bowling variety that his rival had, New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming confessed: “Lanka have the most unorthodox bowling attack in the world.” This innocuous quote by Fleming says a lot, since this is one factor that plays a big role in a long one-day tournament like the World Cup. In the past it has helped teams go all the way at the mega event.

The only team that can somewhat stand up to Lanka are Australia, and as expected both teams are hot favourites to win the Cup.

A head-to-head comparison of the two bowling attacks is an interesting exercise, and Lanka seem to hold the edge. Left-arm leggie Brad Hodge, like Murali, is the unconventional spinner that teams are not used to facing. Glenn McGrath, like Vaas, is the veteran who knows what to bowl, where and when. With Shoaib Akhtar not around and Shane Bond cutting on pace, Shaun Tait and Lasith Malinga are the two unquestionable speed kings of this tournament.

Nathan Bracken, like Vaas, provides the left-arm pacer variety and, like Fernando, hits the deck with the new ball and gets the reverse swing at the death.

Andrew Symonds and Dilshan are the trusted part-timers for their captains while Jayasuriya and Michael Clarke are the left-arm spinners who can plug the runs in the mid-overs.

Such is the similarity between the bowling attacks of the two teams that watching their game might seem like flipping through the MCC coaching manual where all the fine arts connected to the cricket ball will be on view.

So it doesn’t come as a surprise that both the teams have Australian coaches, since this has been the formula that the world champions have banked on over the years. During the 2003 World Cup in South Africa skipper Ricky Ponting too had a similar diverse attack. McGrath, Hogg and Symonds were around, while Tait has replaced Lee and the likes of Andy Bichel, Jason Gillespie, Ian Harvey were the other pace options. Lehmann, like Clarke here, gave the extra spin option.

Going further back in 1999 it was leggie Shane Warne, chinaman Michael Bevan, left-arm orthodox spinner Lehmann, offie Mark Waugh, military medium pacer Steve Waugh, Tom Moody and Stuart Clark gave fluidity to the pace-prominent attack consisting of McGrath, Damien Fleming and Paul Reiffel.

If one checks out the world conquering Sri Lankan bowling attack of ‘96, it was predominantly banking on slow bowlers with likes of Murali, Kumar Dharmasena, Asanka Gurusinha, Jayasuriya and Arjuna Ranatunga.

Comparatively, the squad that Jayawardene leads is more balanced. Vaas and Wickramasinghe were just there to get the shine off the bowl as the spinners would take over after that. Today Jayawardene has at least three pacers who play a significant part in the mid and the death overs.

This variety in the bowling attack has a big role to play in the team standing so far in the tournament. South Africa and New Zealand, with limited spin options and with pacers of varying speeds, happen to be on the second rung with the more balanced teams like Sri Lanka and Australia at the top.

And in this very competitive environment it wouldn’t be fair in case one doesn’t try to figure out which one of the two teams has a better attack. Fleming called Lanka’s attack most unorthodox but he forgot to add it was the deadliest. Murali has more variety than Hodge, and Malinga with his sling-shot action is tougher to deal with than Tait. Jayasuriya is more wily than Clarke and that is enough is to settle the case.