Readers will be familiar with the work of Wanindu Hasaranga. White-ball leg-spinning gun. Hits it miles. Fields like a demon.
Less renowned are his skills with the red ball. Up until his retirement from the format at the age of 26 last August, he had played four Tests, averaged north of 100 with the ball, and made one fifty. Calling it quits was less about him turning his back on the game’s traditions than it was him and Sri Lanka sensibly agreeing that he was better off not bothering. Hasaranga missed the inaugural season of Major League Cricket due to attending a Test camp for a series he eventually wasn’t picked for. Why sit on the fringes when there is franchise cash to be hoovered up?
And so it came as some surprise when he was named in the Sri Lanka Test squad to face Bangladesh, in a series starting in a few days’ time, Hasaranga having missed a total of one Test match between turn and u-turn. And this isn’t just any Test series, but a Test series that clashes with the IPL, in which Hasaranga has impressed in spurts but is yet to fully establish himself, and in which he has been signed by a new team this year. Teams tend to look down upon late pull-outs and changes of plan, but Sunrisers Hyderabad would have to wait, the whites are a-calling.
You might think this would be the kind of thing that would warrant explanation, or at the very least, acknowledgment. You would be wrong. The Sri Lanka Cricket press release announcing the squad simply read as follows: “The Sri Lanka Cricket Selection Committee selected the below-given 17-member squad to take part in the Test series against Bangladesh. The Honorable Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs, Harin Fernando, approved the squad. The two match Test series will commence on the 22nd March at SICS, Sylhet.” Hasaranga’s name was slotted into the middle of those picked. That was that. Long live Test cricket.
Or not. As fate would have it, one day after Hasaranga’s reversal came the news that he would be suspended for the series that, before this week, he had been retired for. Hasaranga has been racking up demerit points at an alarming rate over the past few months, with this being his second suspension in quick succession. Last month, he was incensed at a high full toss that wasn’t given as a no-ball at the denouement of a tense T20I against Afghanistan. “If you can’t see that, that umpire isn’t suited to international cricket,” he said in the post-match presser. “It would be much better if he did another job.” He promptly copped three demerit points, taking him to five in a 24-month period, and was banned for two T20Is. Bang to rights.
Having not learned his lesson, he was back at it again in the final ODI against Bangladesh. This time he kept his dissent on field, having “snatched his cap from one of the umpires and ridiculed the umpiring in the match,” according to the ICC. Another two demerit points were accrued, bringing his tally to eight, converted to two suspension points.
Is it just rotten luck, unretiring from Test cricket (a decision revealed after the ODI in question) only to be banned immediately? Had Hasaranga not unretired, he would instead have missed Sri Lanka’s next four white-ball games, their first four fixtures in the T20 World Cup, one of which is against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka’s current fiercest rivals. Whatever the motivation for his retirement u-turn, it has, in a roundabout way, aided Sri Lanka’s campaign in that event.
The ICC’s code of conduct does allow for discretion to be used in decreeing from what format a player is banned. Clause 7.9.3 states: “the ICC shall apply the suspension points to the subsequent international matches in which the player is most likely to participate in”.
Given that Hasaranga was far from a regular in Tests even before his retirement, given he hasn’t played a first-class game in over a year, and given he is a mainstay in T20Is, it is possible to quibble with the ICC’s assessment. But the ICC did have the option to keep him available for the Tests and ban him for the T20 World Cup, and chose not to.
What is also unclear is whether Hasaranga, now unavailable for the Test series, will travel for the opening stages of the IPL as originally planned. The ICC’s suspension does not apply to franchise cricket. Their first game is on Saturday, March 23. Much interest will be paid to whether Hasaranga turns up or not.
SLC did not respond to Wisden.com’s request for a comment.
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