A school in unorthodoxy

'Bowling is a unique art of cricket. No two actions are the same, and no one has the perfect action. And, some players have been quite successful at the International level with highly unusual actions which have defied convention. 

And, there is the old adage, “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”, that comes in. As long as the action is safe and legal, don’t tinker with what has proven successful unless and until the bowler has a lean spell.' 

These are the first two paragraphs of a bowling section of what seems like a rather liberal coaching manual. Actually, the National Cricket Academy’s bowling manual is, in theory, a rather gripping read and, should it be heeded, could do more good for Indian cricket than harm. 

But evangelists of this manual aren’t particularly good at perpetuating the message it delivers. Instead, they shove bowlers into pre-existing moulds and spit them out with a full-blown identity crisis. They are almost always scraping players off their individuality. 

Jasprit Bumrah got away with it but most others didn’t. It’s the case with batters too, but for the sake of this story - you’ll see why soon - let’s stick to those in the powerful business of projectile propulsion. 

About an hour from India, however, things are done a bit differently. 

Sri Lankans embrace unorthodoxy, at times they even go out of their way to find it. Only, the country never seems to have a dearth of bowlers with peculiar run-ups, actions, delivery points, wrist positions, landing angles…

Sri Lanka Cricket has nurtured them all much the same, and we have accepted and enjoyed their ‘weird’ ways because cricket cannot and should not be restricted to a textbook. Of course, with great unorthodoxy comes great confusion, thereby criticism, but the genius of nonconformity will not recede. Not in Sri Lanka at least. 

“It’s a peculiar thing,” says well-known Sri Lankan anthropologist Dhananka Ratnakar on the phone from Southampton. “For a country which can be quite divisive when it comes to certain things, the civil war between the Sinhalas and the Tamils is a classic example, but they are very united when it comes to cricket. 

“So much so that if they find anyone unique, they make it a point to bring them into the team and honour that unorthodoxy. See, there’s no one answer, but we have been underdogs for a long time, and I think we still are, so we like to add some mystery so that we can compensate for the shortcomings elsewhere.

“This is just an educated guess, but the truth could be something else entirely,” he adds, making it seem like he intends to keep the secret of unorthodoxy hidden from the prying eyes of those beyond the Emerald Isles. 

But just because they have produced a plethora of them, it doesn’t mean they have always found great success with them. 

When you have the likes of Muttiah Muralitharan, Lasith Malinga and Ajantha Mendis on the list, it could well seem like it, but that’s ignoring the likes of Lakshan Sandakan, Sachitra Senanayake and Thariundu Kaushal. Matheesha Pathirana and Maheesh Theekshana are new on the list so there’s no telling which side of the spectrum they’ll assume in time. 

The truth is Sri Lanka don’t mind if some of them fall through the cracks. In fact, Arjuna Ranatunga, the World Cup-winning skipper, had this to tell DH a few years ago. 

“We know everyone will not have long careers so even if we get them (unorthodox) bowlers to play for a few years and win us a few games, it will be enough,” he explained the rationale behind going after unique bowlers. “In general, the career span for bowlers is short so wouldn’t it be better if they bowl the only way they know how to? Instead of that, if we tweak too much, we might hurt them and they will lose out on that x-factor.”

Muralitharan went on to play 133 Tests, 350 ODIs and 12 T20Is with a mind-boggling 1347 international wickets. 

Malinga played 30 Tests, 226 ODIs and 84 T20Is with a rather impressive return of 445 wickets. 

Mendis' 19 Tests, 87 ODIs and 39 T20Is yielded 70, 152 and 66 wickets respectively before the opposition deciphered the magician’s sleight of hand.

Unless you’re an absolute ‘freak of nature’ like Muralitharan, the odds of you either ending your career early or being decoded are quite high because batters are in the business of problem-solving and bowlers can only do so much. 

But the point, as Ranatunga explained, is that this could happen to you even if you went by the textbook. So, let go and let it happen. 

“We have a solid school structure in place,” says a scout for the SLC on condition of anonymity. “We know almost immediately if there is talent. For nearly two decades, we have held talent search programmes twice a year (February and August) and we are very attentive. What we’re looking out for, say in the case of spinners, is for long fingers and ability to turn the ball. When it comes to raw spinners, the ability, dexterity to turn the ball, to send it whirring, revving through the air or off the ground is innate. It’s not something you can always train.”   

Then the scout reveals that SLC also has tools to enhance, in this instance, finger strength to aid in bowling, especially with deliveries like the carrom ball. The device, he explains, is a stick with a spring at one end, which has a cricket ball fixed to it. The ball is meant to be turned, using the fingers, in a direction other than the one the torque of the spring imparts. 

There is no evidence that Mendis had access to this archaic but effective device, but by the time he got around to mentoring Theekshana in the Sri Lanka Army Sports Club, ‘The Twister’ was certainly in circulation.

Theekshana is now an integral member of the national side and has the numbers to justify. The same goes for the young Pathirana, and the newest slinger in town has been mentored by Malinga at the high-performance centre sporadically. 

What this means is that the new generation has access to all the unorthodoxy in the world, helping them realise their full potential instead of buckling to stigma. 

Murali had a deformity which didn’t allow him to fully straighten his arm, therefore the action. 

Malinga was a river swimming champion and his shoulders allowed him to generate force from that wide swimming-stroke angle, therefore the action.  

Mendis has those unreasonably strong fingers from pulling the trigger on the rifles in the army, therefore the ‘carrom’. 

We don’t yet know what prompted the latest rendition of Mendis (Theekshana) or Malinga (Pathirana), but we do know that they are part of a long, glorious list of divergents from a land where ‘strange’ is always within range.