Long before Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara attracted world’s attention, Aravinda de Silva had wowed the cricketing world with his style and no little substance. It won’t be stretching too far to term de Silva as Sri Lanka’s first true batting superstar.
While Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana did hog a lot of limelight, the diminutive right-hander was Lanka’s true hero of their 1996 World Cup triumph, having accumulated 448 runs at an average of around 90 and a strike rate of 107.69. His match-winning knocks in the semifinal (against India at Eden Gardens) and final (against Australia in Lahore) have immortalised him. After retiring with 15,645 international runs from the two formats he played, de Silva has dabbled in cricket administration, been a selector of the national team and has tried his hand at coaching. In this chat, the stylish batsman talks about 1996 World Cup, his approach to batting among other things. Excerpts.
During the 1996 World Cup campaign, Ranatunga said that the focus was to keep Aravinda happy so that he scores plenty of runs. So what made Aravinda happy?
(Laughs) I am still happy. Arjuna kept me happy. No, no, I don’t think it was just Aravinda, it was a great team-effort. I think people say that it was Sanath and Aravinda who won the World Cup but that is rubbish as far as I am concerned. It was a great team-effort. There were contributions, very vital contributions which came in very critical situations. To have Arjuna, Roshan and Hashan bat after me, gave me that much more confidence to go and play my natural game.
What as your approach to batting?
My approach was simple when I realised that my way of batting was being aggressive and not worry about failure. Also, not worry about criticism. Just learn through my mistakes and that’s what I did. So I guess that way you bring out the best of the individual and their natural ability. So I guess that’s the way I would approach the coaches from a young age. That’s why I said it is a culture and a policy which we need to build from the grassroot level to make sure that all the coaches are on the same page rather than having different ideas, different styles of coaching. It’s got to be a Sri Lankan way of playing cricket and I guess that’s what I would look for.
How painful to see Sri Lanka playing the way they are at present?
I think they changed the approach and batted differently in the second innings (of the second Test at SSC against India). I think that aggression basically showed how successful you can be if you are aggressive and more positive. Losing matches is one thing but I think going down with a fight is another matter. So I guess we can take some positives out of this game and with those positives, hopefully will be able to carry on for the next game.
Against Sri Lanka, playing at home was never easy but what ails Sri Lankan cricket now? Is it the system or the lack of interest from the youngsters?
The interest is there, there is no doubt about that. We are going through a rebuilding process but you can’t be saying that forever, you need to be up to it, sooner or later. So unlike those days you do know where things have gone wrong and you need to put it right faster. The longer you wait, and more short-term process you do, this wait will get longer. Short-term is good for a few months, one or two series but not for the future. So we need to seriously look at the team in the long-term and stick to that long-term and not keep chopping and changing.
Coming back to your batting again, how did you adapt to playing fast bowling?
We did have coaches brought in from various countries – Peter Philpott and Daryl Foster from Australia. Though we didn’t have fast bowlers, some of the drills that we did were very useful. What we did was we went indoors and put a machine at almost 100 mph and kept on facing that and I realised that some of those sessions which we had are probably the fastest sessions I have ever faced in any sort of cricket. I guess if your eyes and reactions get used to that sort of speed, then it comes so much easier out there. I think those guys did chucking on a cement wicket with a wet tennis ball. Those were natural things which we used to do, and we used to enjoy doing that.
Who do you think are the top batsmen in the current generation?
I think two guys, Virat and AB de Villiers. For me, I would pay money to go and watch them. Those two guys are the best players in the current era. It’s because the way they play the game. It’s entertaining, they play proper cricket shots. AB probably is sometimes a bit unorthodox but they bat with a lot of confidence and arrogance. They take on any attack, whether it is spin and pace, both versions of the game, they play good cricketing shots and they are consistent. Consistency is very important. Of course, Smith and Root and Williamson, they have done well but for me, these two are a little more special.