The story of this man goes that he was picked by the Sri Lankan team out of nowhere during the 1999 home series against the Aussies due to their weakness against some quality spin bowling. Rangana Herath was discovered by the Sri Lankan selectors when he was playing for Kurunegala CC, a not-so-fancied first class team, in the Premier League (as they call it in Sri Lanka) and decided to invest in this young man who was then aged 18. Today, five years after making his test debut for Sri Lanka, Rangana Herath has ascended himself to take up the challenge of being Sri Lanka’s premier spinner in the absence of the great Muttiah Muralitharan. In fact, Rangana is the first and only player to have represented Sri Lanka from the town of Kurunegala, which is on the way between Colombo and Anuradhapura.
After making his first class debut for Kurunegala Youth Cricket Club in 1996, this talented left arm spinner has made rapid strides in his cricketing career. After tasting some success in Kurunegala, Herath decided to get going and made a decisive career move to Moors Cricket Club, which boasts of producing Chaminda Vaas. Since his arrival at Moors, his career took off from nowhere to being one of the finest second rung spinners in the country. Rangana, like many other modern day left arm spinners uses flight and loop as a weapon to deceive and then defeat the batsmen. Besides, he has a mystery ball which he bowls with an unorthodox bent finger grip sending the ball spinning in the opposite direction, something that for sure bamboozled the Aussies to a large extent in 1999. He also has a distinct version of the arm ball, which makes him more effective and potent on any wicket. After his debut against Australia in 1999, he was reduced to playing first class cricket for the Moors and became a regular in the Sri Lanka ‘A’ team.
Rangana Herath even toured India in 2003 with the Sri Lanka A team and this is where he rediscovered himself, spinning the Lankans to victory at Mumbai. Following his good performances against India ‘A’ and New Zealand ‘A’, Rangana got a national recall for the series against Australia, where he played an inconsequential third test. Rangana made his ODI debut against Zimbabwe and he returned home with 2 wickets in his maiden ODI outing. The Zimbabwean tour provided the right impetus for Rangana to establish his place in both the squad and the team. He was made an active member of the Sri Lankan ODI team during the home series against South Africa where the hosts played without Murali, and Rangana was one of the emerging stars for the Lankans and he was the one who did not make them feel Murali’s absence. He was one of the best performers in the Sri Lankan Twenty20 with 4 wickets at 9.50 a piece. His recent performance for Sri Lanka in the Test Match against Pakistan at Faisalabad was in a way special as it was rare to see the return of the classical form of left arm spin bowling, going back to the days of greats like Bedi.
Although we shower a lot of praises on his bowling abilities, Rangana is a useful lower order bat too. He can play both aggressively as well as hold one end up for the other senior batsman and this proves the fact that Rangana is an upcoming bowling all rounder for Sri Lankan cricket. Besides his effective batting, Rangana also possesses athleticism in the field, where he fields mostly in the boundary.
In these days of purple patches, where Sri Lanka have re-emerged as a force to reckon with in both forms of the game, players like Rangana Herath have a huge role to play. One could easily question Sri Lanka’s depth in producing quality spinners after Murali few months back, but for the moment Rangana is one of the answers to that question. One sincerely hopes that he doesn’t fall prey to the not-so-good team management in Sri Lanka, something that the Chairman of Selectors recently pointed out. It is important for the Sri Lankans to give opportunities to young and upcoming players like Herath during the absence of Murali, so that the real potential can be tapped.
We at Cricketfundas.com would like to wish Rangana Herath all the very best for the future and hope that his unorthodox deliveries could fox many a batsmen in the days to come !