Marvan Atapattu – Former Captain and Official Water Boy for the WC 2007

As the cricket fans light up their bulbs till 3am in the morning, the world cup itself is heating up. With the recent nail biting win against the English, Sri Lankans are well on the way for a promising end to the tournament. Several interesting issues surfaced as the Sri Lankan team marched on to a reasonably safe state in the super 8s. These were focused on the Sri Lankan middle order batting, the teams’ dependence on Sanath Jayasuriya and many more matters that were brought on to discussion by cricket gurus.

With not-so-much knowledge on the intricate matters of the game, I thought of delving into certain issues which I believe would surface within the next three or four weeks and the most important being the inclusion of Marvan Atapattu in the team. From the start of the tournament it was seen that Marvan, former captain of Sri Lanka and an excellent one at that with a inspiring record, primarily played the role of a water-boy and was serving the team as the 12^th player.

Now, it is normally agreed that a team that’s on a winning streak is not changed unless a considerable issue arises calling for such a change. With this concept, the opportunities for Marvan to get a place in the Sri Lankan team seemed quite unlikely. But is this decision to leave Marvan out rational or have they missed a trick?

Sanath Jayasuriya’s opening partner Upul Tharanga has not been in his greatest form during this tournament. Though he scored two half centuries during the tournament, it seemed that he was taking an unusual approach to his batting which was highly uncharacteristic of him. It was more like that his place in the team was under pressure due to Marvan’s being in the squad. Though this is highly subjective, this very well could be one of the main reasons why we see a mediocre performance from Upul Tharanga from his accustomed approach to batting.

This opens up the conversation as to whether it would be feasible idea for Marvan to have a go at the top order. Let’s not forget that Sanath and Marvan used to be a highly successful opening pair for the Sri Lankan team with a lot of chemistry and understanding between them. To add to that, Marvan is an excellent player of spin bowling as well as fast bowling and a player with very sound technique.

With enough reasons to give Marvan a go at the earlier matches (this doesn’t include sympathy out of seeing him bringing water to the players) it seems that Sri Lankan team management missed an opportunity to get the best out of this player. Even in the South Africa match, Marvan would have been a more suitable option over Upul Tharanga given his record against the best teams in the world. At the least level, I thought they should have cut him some slack in one of the games against one of the less reputed teams, i.e against Bermuda or Bangladesh. But with failure to do so, we have now arrived at the critical section of the super 8s with Australia and New Zealand to face next though we are already in the comfort zone. So, the situation thus reveals that chances for Marvan in this tournament is fading away and he would only have to serve as the 12^th man till the end of the tournament.