A quality all-rounder’s inability to contribute with any one facet of his game has every possibility of affecting his overall performance as well as that of his team. Angelo Mathews is a case in point.
Making his international debut in November 2008, Mathews had taken little time to establish himself as one of the best all-rounders in world cricket. He had quickly carved out a place for himself in the then Sri Lankan line-up, featuring stalwarts Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan. But especially after the 2014-15 season, the 34-year-old’s career has been riddled with injuries which took a massive toll on his bowling, forcing him to play as a specialist batsman on most occasions.
Inconsistency with the bat and not being able to convert the starts also became a little more frequent. Since mid-2019, Mathews has scored 834 runs in 13 Tests with only four half-centuries and two hundreds, one of which (200 not out) came against minnows Zimbabwe.
Obviously, better numbers are expected from a player of his standard.
In terms of his Test-match bowling, Mathews sent down only 17 overs over the last 39 months or so. He hasn’t been a part of limited-overs cricket for a year. Injuries and form issues did somewhat spoil his figures, but the worst sufferer was the Sri Lankan team that badly missed his ability to swing and move the ball.
“Angelo’s very competitive by nature and he misses not being able to contribute with the ball,” said Harsha De Silva, under whose guidance Mathews learnt the basics of the game at St Joseph’s College in Colombo.
“He has had a few injury issues that restricted his ability to bowl. I believe it has helped him to invest more time on his batting, but it seems to have had an effect on the team balance.
“We saw this in the first Test against India (in Mohali). Sri Lanka were forced to play a third quick at the expense of a second specialist spinner as they didn’t have a fast bowling all-rounder in the playing XI,” the Brisbane-based De Silva, now director of cricket at the Wynnum Manly District Cricket Club, pointed out.
Owing to this missing balance, Sri Lanka have struggled at home too in recent times. Routed 3-0 by India in 2017 and the back-to-back series defeats versus England (in November 2018 and January 2021) bear testimony to it.
