On next March 19, he will turn forty! His Cricket Board afraids to play him ODI and T20I, fearing they could lose him forever with extra workload. He himself doesn’t know how long he will play. Since last two years, he has been assessing his eging body series by series.
Yet, Rangana Herath is the most iconic player Sri Lanka Cricket Currently have. He is a Magician, Biggest Match winner for Sri Lanka since the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan. In a sense, Herath has the bigger impact on Sri Lanka Cricket than the Legend Murali : The 800 wicket Holder was a match winner right from the start of his career, while Herath turned a saviour for his country, when they were desperately looking for someone to recreate the ‘Murali Era.”
Herath did this with perfection. He is the first ever left arm spinner in the history of the game to achieve 400 wickets.
Though, today is not a occasion to praise Herath for his bowling miracles. Cricket World knows, that there is always a ray of hope for Sri Lanka, as long as Hearth has the ball in his hands!
Today is the occasion to salute his batting heroics, as he single handedly turned the fate of the first test between India and Sri Lanka, with his batting, for a change. In a match, where world’s best batting line up surrendered meekly and folded for 172, in a match where no batsmen could score a hundred till the fourth day, Rangana Herath scored enterprising 67 and insured that Sri Lanka can’t lose the match. Now, there are only two possible results : either it would be a draw or Sri Lanka will win it.
In his batting career, he has managed 1542 runs in 85 test matches with an average of 14.82.
We termed his runs at ‘Managed’ simply because he was not destinated to make those runs for Sri Lanka, after getting 400 wickets for them.
But, In last three years, Hearth bailed out Sri Lanka many time with his batting, when top order surrendered meekly. In that period, almost every time he batted, he made more runs than many top order batsmen, like Lahiru Thirimane.
He might have no batting technique, but he has the most important “match awareness” his batsmen don’t have. Moreover, he wants to contribute for his country in any possible way.
That’s why, with a cracking body with every single stroke, he is keep producing those batting miracles. Sri Lanka batsmen has no better cricketer to look for inspiration that their Herath Aiyaa. They are blessed, that are playing with a legend, who wants to give his everything to his team!
