By Winston McGowan
Caribbean cricket fans are currently focusing on the visit to the region by the Sri Lankans. It is Sri Lanka’s third tour of the Caribbean since the country which bore the name Ceylon up to 1972 was raised to full membership of the International Cricket Council and granted Test status in 1981, 27 years ago. Twelve years were to elapse before Sri Lanka engaged the West Indies in Test cricket.
The initial encounter between the two sides took place in Sri Lanka in December 1993 when the West Indies under the captaincy of Richie Richardson were still world champions. It was a single Test which ended in a draw. Since then the teams have been involved in four Test series, two in Sri Lanka in 2001 and 2005 and two in the Caribbean in 1997 and 2003. This first instalment of this article will focus on some of the striking features of these five contests, while the second one will present a brief outline of these clashes.
Apart from the limited number of Test engagements between the two teams since 1981, the most obvious feature of their encounters has been their short duration. The two teams have never played a four or five-match Test series. They have been involved in one three-game rubber, three two-match series and the inaugural single Test – a total of only 10 Tests in 27 years.
Surprisingly, neither team has won a single Test, much less a series, away from home. Apart from the initial Test in 1993 the West Indies have lost all the other five Tests they have played in Sri Lanka – three games in 2001 under Carl Hooper’s leadership and two matches in 2005 under Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s captaincy.
On the other hand, the West Indies have triumphed in both series in the Caribbean, winning each by one game to nil with one Test drawn. The first occasion was in 1997 under Courtney Walsh’s leadership and the second in 2003 when Brian Lara was the captain. In short, Sri Lanka is seeking in its current tour to win both its first Test and series in the Caribbean.
Until the beginning of the present tour Sri Lanka overall has had the upper hand in its encounters with the West Indies. Of the 10 Tests the teams have played, the West Indies have won only two and have lost five with the other three games ending in a draw.
One of the interesting features of the Tests between the two teams is that the side batting first has seldom won the game. This has happened in only two of the ten Tests.
The Tests for the most part have been distinguished by low scoring. Only eight of the 38 innings have produced a total of over 300 runs. The highest scores by the two teams in these innings were 627 for nine declared by Sri Lanka at Colombo in 2001, when Hashan Tillekeratne scored an unbeaten double century (204 not out), and 477 for 9 declared by the West Indies in St Lucia in 2003. The main contributors to that total were Brian Lara (209) and Wavell Hinds (113).
West Indies batsmen have not done as well against Sri Lanka as in Tests against most other teams. Only Lara and Wavell Hinds have scored centuries against the Sri Lankans. Lara’s batting has been the most outstanding feature of the encounters between the two sides. In 13 innings in eight Tests against the Sri Lankans, Lara has scored 1125 runs, including two double hundreds, three single centuries and two fifties, at a phenomenal average of 86.53 an innings. His aggregate is twice that of the next best on either side, namely, 562 runs by Sanath Jayasuriya in 16 innings in all 10 Tests, with a moderate average of 35.12 runs an innings.
Lara features in the best West Indian partnerships in Tests against Sri Lanka for the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th wickets. His partnership of 194 runs for the third wicket with Ramnaresh Sarwan in the third Test at Colombo in 2001 remains the highest West Indian partnership for any wicket against Sri Lanka. On that occasion Lara scored a double century (221) and Sarwan (69) after the openers, Chris Gayle (0) and Darren Ganga (6), had been dismissed early with only 17 runs on the scoreboard.
Lara followed up this double hundred with a century (130) in the second innings, becoming only the sixth batsman in the entire history of Test cricket dating back to 1877 to score a double (or triple century) and a single hundred in the same Test. Furthermore, he set two new records.
The first was the unenviable one of becoming the batsman to score the most runs (351) on a losing side in a Test. The second record was that he became the batsman to score the largest proportion (53.83 per cent) of his team’s runs in a Test (221 out of 390 and 130 out of 262). He eclipsed the long-standing record of 51.88 per cent by the South African J. H. Sinclair (106 out of 177 and 4 out of 35) against England at Capetown in an 1898 – 1899 series.
In striking contrast to Lara’s brilliant batting, the most commendable feature of Sri Lankan cricket against the West Indies has been its bowling, especially the controlled two-way swing of Chaminda Vaas and the off-spin of Muttiah Muralitharan with his prodigious turn, deceptive flight and clever variations. Together Vaas and Muralitharan have captured ten or more wickets in a Test against the West Indies on three occasions.
Muralitharan performed this feat twice in the same series, a rarity – 11 for 170 at Galle (6 for 126 and 5 for 44) and 10 for 135 at Kandy (4 for 54 and 6 for 81) in 2001. Vaas had even more impressive match figures in the third and final Test at Colombo in that same rubber – 14 for 191 (7 for 120 in the first innings and 7 for 71 in the second).
In contrast, no West Indian bowler has so far captured as many as ten wickets in a Test against Sri Lanka. The best match figures by a West Indian in such a match are 9 for 85 by Corey Collymore at Sabina Park in Jamaica in 2003 – 2 for 28 in the first innings and 7 for 57 in the second.
More details about these Test encounters between the West Indies and Sri Lanka will be presented next week in the second instalment of this article.
