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Follow UsIt was just under a year ago that a 20-year-old Dunith Wellalage announced himself on the biggest of stages with a stellar all-round showing against a full strength Indian side in the Asia Cup.
That night, Sri Lanka fell short in their Super Four bout against India but the clash saw the birth of a superstar.
Young Wellalage, who entered the Asia Cup with a lot of hype due to his exceptional showing in the 2022 Under-19 World Cup, fully justified his hype by producing an all-round showing for the ages, picking five wickets with the ball before top-scoring with the bat in the second innings.
There, chasing 214, Sri Lanka looked dead and buried on a turner at 73/5, with victory looking like a formality for India. It was then that Wellalage, in just his 10th innings in ODI cricket, produced a memorable recovery act that not only saved Sri Lanka from embarrassment but briefly gave them hope of winning the game.
At 162/6, needing 52 more to win the game, the hosts had a realistic chance of pulling off the impossible. It eventually wasn’t to be for Sri Lanka, but while the rest of the side collapsed, Wellalage stood tall, ending the innings unbeaten on 42*.
The odds of the same player pulling off an eerily similar recovery against the same side at the same venue are incredibly low. But somehow, that is exactly what ended up unfolding at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on August 2nd (Friday).
Sri Lanka were the ones who batted first this time around, but the hosts were in deep trouble on a sharp turning wicket, at 101/5.
Washington Sundar, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav were getting the ball to do all sorts, and at this point you feared that Sri Lanka might endure a collapse similar to the ones they did in the T20I series.
However, it was then that Wellalage, walking in at No.7, played the best knock of his ODI career - yet - to take the hosts to a score that looked beyond their wildest dreams at the conclusion of the 27th over.
67* off 65 balls, striking at 103.08 on a track in which no other batter who faced 30+ balls struck at more than 75.00. This was truly a day where Wellalage batted out of his mind, reaffirming the fact that he’s a generational talent with a knack for the special.
Remarkably enough, the first few balls of the left-hander’s knock did not have the makings of a special innings.
Sundar and Kuldeep were spinning a web around the Lankan batters and Wellalage looked in all sorts, not scoring a single run off his first nine balls. He narrowly avoided getting dismissed on his fifth ball, with an attempted slog sweep, just about missing the outside edge of his bat.
But the 21-year-old dug in and constructed as perfect an innings as possible, first focusing on rebuilding the innings before cutting loose right towards the end.
Sri Lanka were 178/7 when they lost Wanindu Hasaranga, the last recognized ‘batter’ in the XI. Wellalage, at this point, was on 34* off 45 balls, largely focusing on knocking the ball around.
Post the dismissal of Hasaranga, however, the youngster cut loose, amassing 33 off the final 20 balls he faced, tearing into the Indian pacers Arshdeep Singh and Mohammed Siraj.
Until Hasaranga’s dismissal, Wellalage had faced seven balls of pace and had amassed six runs. After Hasaranga’s dismissal, the 14 balls he faced versus pace yielded 27 runs, with the youngster hammering two fours and two sixes.
The pick of the strokes from these four boundaries was a deliberate uppercut over the head of the wicketkeeper that left the bowler, Siraj, both befuddled and exasperated.
But as impressive as Wellalage’s stroke making was against pace, it was the application he showed against spin that was even more admirable.
He walked in at a time when Sri Lanka were being dominated by the Indian spinners, and completely nullified the visitors’ threat after a cautious start.
He amassed 34 runs against spin - the most among all Lankan batters on the day - and pretty much single-handedly saw off the threat of Sundar, against whom he collected 20 runs off just 21 balls.
Wellalage’s efforts helped Sri Lanka eventually finish on 230/8. After scoring 101/5 in the first 27 overs of their innings, the hosts ended up registering 129/3 off the final 23 of their innings — all thanks to Wellalage, whose stocks keep rising after every passing year.
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