As Sri Lanka stretched their lead in Galle after another Australian surrender to spin bowling, stump microphones picked up a touring player using the words ‘f*** you guys are lucky’. How so?
Daniel Brettig in Galle05-Aug-2016F*** you guys are lucky.Lucky that when Joe Burns failed to make contact with Vishwa Fernando’s first ball in Test cricket, a wide long hop he could barely reach, the opener redoubled his effort with a hook shot straight to square leg second ball. Burns’ technique and mindset are drawn from a batting upbringing with Queensland at the Gabba, Australia’s fastest and truest pitch. He has so far looked lost in Sri Lanka, despite being given plenty of exposure to Asian conditions via an Australia A tour last year, a pre-tour visit to the same country this year, two weeks in Colombo before this series, and countless hours batting on spinning wickets prepared at the National Cricket Centre. If there was any doubt left about Burns’ addled state of mind, he confirmed it by pushing Herath weakly to cover in the final half hour.F*** you guys are lucky.Lucky that in the last over of day one, David Warner pushed hard at an off break and edged it to slip, ending his most promising innings of the tour. Warner is now into his 12th overseas Test match without a hundred, when the manner of his innings means he is arguably Australia’s most dangerous batsman. His angry howl upon being dismissed suggested that he had a fair idea of what was to come next, and also that he is increasingly resembling the team for which he is vice-captain – a hero at home, a humble traveler away.F*** you guys are lucky.Lucky that in the first three overs of the second morning, Usman Khawaja and Steven Smith, the captain, were both bowled playing for spin that wasn’t there. Smith had made mention of this multiple times between the Pallekele and Galle Tests, to the point of sounding almost Michael Clarkesque in his repetition of the fact that he would not look kindly upon batsmen getting beaten “on the inside of the bat”. Yet, Khawaja and Smith both did this in quick succession, ignoring the earlier suggestion that if the stumps are guarded, then the spinning ball will almost certainly do too much. Khawaja then compounded his earlier error by leaving a ball that hit off stump as stumps drew near. At Galle, this seemed the height of heedlessness, for the pitch has offered spin without spite. There have been plenty of far worse surfaces prepared here.F*** you guys are lucky.Lucky that Adam Voges, he of the pseudo-Bradman batting average of late, has contrived to get himself out three times in as many innings. On day two in Pallekele, he had the rare distinction of being dismissed by pace after making a start, and in the second, he bunted a half-volley back into the hands of Rangana Herath. This time, he again looked more secure than smoothers, before chipping another half-volley to cover. Voges looks technically well-equipped for these conditions and bowling, helped by a succession of slow surfaces in England earlier in the year. But his mental errors have resulted in cheap dismissals, and not making Sri Lanka’s bowlers work anywhere near as hard as those of West Indies, New Zealand or even England.With an average of 22.40 midway through his 14th Test, Nevill, who bats higher up for New South Wales, is not contributing the sort of runs his technique and level-headed demeanour suggest he should•AFPF*** you guys are lucky.Lucky that Peter Nevill, a better batsman than Test match watchers have so far seen, was late and crooked on another stumps-seeking first ball from Herath, again playing for turn rather than down the line of the ball. In the second innings at Pallekele, Nevill fought bravely in a lost cause, much as he did at Edgbaston last year against England. Most of the times he has batted in Tests, Nevill has quickly found himself short of specialist batting partners, and his busy, strike-rotating and odd-boundary style has not resulted in big partnerships with the tail. With an average of 22.40 midway through his 14th Test, Nevill, who bats higher up for New South Wales, is not contributing the sort of runs his technique and level-headed demeanour suggest he should.F*** you guys are lucky.Lucky that the presence of the DRS meant Mitchell Starc’s front pad plonked down the wicket could not deny Herath a hat-trick, on the way to Australia’s lowest-ever total against Sri Lanka. Three more wickets before close made it 11 for 77 for their day. Herath’s wiles have so far accounted for 14 wickets in three and a bit innings, and the Australians seem further away from working out his subtle variations than ever. More broadly, Sri Lankan spin is now responsible for 30 out of 33 Australian wickets for the series, at an ever diminishing cost. While the tourists have spoken of every player needing a plan for dealing with spin that they must stick to rigorously, there has been little evidence of anything beyond hopeful prods down the wicket or from the crease. Tellingly, no batsman has shown much interest in persisting with the sweep. Smith played Australia’s longest innings of the series in Pallekele, feeding himself on a diet of leg-side deflections and refusing to attack much down the ground or through the off side. This is as close the Australians have got to the Asian method, something for the team performance manager to keep in mind when he chooses the team’s next full-time batting coach.F*** you guys are lucky.Lucky that Kusal Perera getting foxed by a couple of Lyon off breaks, followed by a flatter delivery that skidded through to hit the stumps, was virtually the first time all series that a Sri Lankan batsman has fallen this way. By comparison, as many as 14 Australian dismissals have arisen from balls beating the batsmen on the inside as they have failed to cover the stumps adequately or have a second line of defence when coming down the pitch. This discrepancy, more than any other, explains the fact that on this tour, Australia’s spin bowlers have claimed fewer than half the wickets taken by their counterparts, at far greater cost. The use of sweep shots, solid forward defences and calculated dashes down the wicket by Sri Lanka’s batsmen have played their part too.Without meaningful progress, Australia’s current stay at No. 1 will be brief•AFPF*** you guys are lucky.Lucky that the maturing Mitchell Starc has been given precious few runs to defend, just as he appears to be growing into a dominant Test match bowler. Starc has been little short of brilliant in this match, fully deserving match figures of 11 for 94 after a rhythm-finding effort at Pallekele. His set of skills has grown, his pace is undiminished, and vitally, he is pain-free after recovering from a round of ankle and foot surgery. But no fast bowler, no matter how destructive, can be expected to fire his team to victory when he has only been given 33.2 overs to rest his feet between innings. Sadly for Starc, what has, by far, been his best performance in Test cricket is looking like an increasingly fruitless one.F*** you guys are lucky.Lucky to know that Australia’s coach Darren Lehmann, who has just signed a contract extension to take him through to the end of the 2019 Ashes in England, does not think that the team’s increasingly ugly record in Asia will define his tenure. “I think you’re judged on results most of the time all around the world, not just on the subcontinent. I think you’ve got to play well and win a lot of games of cricket, basically, as a coach,” he said this week. Lehmann has done a lot of good for Australian cricket so far, but a live streak of nine Tests in Asia without a single victory, and seven defeats in a row, cannot be ignored forever. The last victory came in 2011, at Galle, of all places, under the guidance of Lehmann’s former team-mate Tim Nielsen. At the time, he had already been asked to reapply for his job due to the Argus review. At the time, the team was ranked fifth in the world. Without meaningful progress, their current stay at No. 1 will be brief.F*** you guys are lucky.Lucky to be playing Australia.