Stand-in Australian skipper Adam Gilchrist has urged his teammates to be patient batting against young Sri Lankan firebrand Lasith Malinga in Thursday’s opening cricket Test in Darwin.
The 20-year-old surged into Test reckoning with 6-90 including the wicket of Test batsman Simon Katich for a duck in the lead-up tour match against the Northern Territory (NT) Chief Minister’s XI in Darwin last weekend.
Malinga, who displaced Nuwan Kulasekera in the touring squad, is a talking point among the Australian batsmen bemused by his unorthodox square-arm bowling delivery, much like the ”sling-shot” style employed by former Australian fast-bowling great Jeff Thomson.
The NT Chief Minister’s XI batsmen, who faced him for the first time in the warm-up game, had difficulty figuring out where he would pitch the ball and judging his pace until sometimes too late.
Gilchrist, leading the world’s top Test team this week in the absence of Ricky Ponting following a family bereavement, called on the Australian batting top order to treat Malinga’s deliveries on their merits.
”We’ve seen some video footage of Malinga and he looks unorthodox and awkward and you need to give yourself at least 10 to 15 balls to get used to him,” Gilchrist told a press conference on Wednesday.
”[Test opener] Justin Langer was impressed with his pace in the first tour game, but that was one game, and you can’t expect Justin and Simon Katich to be experts on that bowler, you’ve only seen once, so we’ve got to be patient with him early and then judge your game against him after that.”
Skipper Marvan Atapattu said the Sri Lankan 11 will not be finalised until the toss on Thursday, but said Malinga has impressed in his first Australian outing.
”Malinga was a handful in our four-day game last weekend. He gave some of their batsmen a hurry-up, so he’ll be a handful, I guess,” Atapattu said.
Sri Lanka are likely to need some extra wicket-taking capability with world-record wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan pulling out of the Australian tour earlier this month, citing undisclosed personal reasons.
Chaminda Vaas, the 76-Test spearhead of the Sri Lanka bowling attack, welcomes Malinga’s emergence.
”Hopefully, he will do well,” Vaas was quoted in Sri Lankan media on Wednesday. ”He is a good young fast bowler for the future but we will have to look after him. He bowls square arm and the batsman find him very difficult to judge his pace and where he is going to pitch the ball.
”That is the advantage Malinga has. If he can put the ball in the right spot he will take a lot of wickets in Australia. He has more pace than Dilhara [Fernando] and he is the fastest in Sri Lanka at the moment.
”He is bowling with decent pace. What he lacks is line and length. But in the four-day game he bowled really well with good line and length.
”Malinga has just started playing international cricket. He will have to look after himself in his fitness. If he does that he can go a long way.
”It is not easy to play in Australia but I think we have a good chance. We are confident at the moment after winning the four-day game. The boys are keen and are looking forward to the first Test,” Vaas said. — Sapa-AFP