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What do you think of the new crop of Sri Lanka's spinners

daytrader

ODI Debutant
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The land of mystery spinners is back to doing what it did best for cricket - that is produce top quality spinners.

Since Murlitharan's retirement, they've had some good bowlers in Mendis, Herath and Dhananjaya but they all faded away. Part of SL's struggle has been that they haven't truly been able to find Murli's replacement.

The excitement though is back with the latest crop of young guns. Here's a look at some of the top prospects:

Ramesh Mendis - 27-year-old, right-arm Offbreak, chief tormentor in Pakistan's first innings. Has three 5 wicket hauls in 9 tests. Handy with the bat

Dunith Wellalage - 19-year-old, left-arm Orthodox, was Sri Lanka's captain in the U19 Cricket World Cup 2022. Handy with the bat

Maheesh Theekshana - 21-year-old, right-arm Offbreak, has ability to spin the ball both ways earning him comparisons with Ajantha Mendis. Has strong performances in LOIs

Prabath Jayasuriya - 30-year-old, left-arm Orthodox, made his debut at a late age but what a debut with 21 wickets in his first two tests and 3 consecutive 5 wicket hauls

Wanindu Hasaranga- 25-year-old, right-arm Legbreak, classified as an all rounder but making headlines due to his bowling. Only the 3rd bowler in history of cricket to pick up a hat-trick on ODI debut
 
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Add SLA Lasith Embuldinya (25 years old averages 32 in test cricket) and SLA Praveen Jayawickrama (23 years old averages 25 in test cricket). Leggies in Hassaranga (24 years old) and Jeffrey Vandersay (32).

Their spin bowling is all settled across the formats. Its the pace bowling that they need to cover and one quality LOI batsman, they have few good ones but, none world class in these two departments.
 
They are all average and none of them are Test match winners. On turning pitch they may be useful together as all can chip in with bat as well. Will be useless on flat wkts
 
Wellalange, Embuldiniya and Jayawickrama look like good long-term prospects, especially in tests. Theekshana will be found out and become irrelevant. Jayasuria could be a good home-track bully/test specialist but the time left on his career is limited. And Hasaranga is already one of the best limited-overs spinners in the world.
 
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Ramesh Mendes, in rhythm, looks pretty good. Bowls a good pace with decent revs and hits the right length more often than not.
 
Question really is how well will they perform out of their comfort zone, ie Sri Lanka?
 
6 wickets for 60 runs for the SRL spinners against Pakistan in the Asia cup super 4 encounter
 
Guys, if you missed it, you missed HISTORY! Dunith Wellalage, just dismantled the Indian batting! 🧨 5 wickets, can you believe it?! 🔥

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Need to remember the names of these young spinners, truly gem from the SL team.

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They always have quality spinners in the lineup and they do have some really high quality spinners at the moment as well. Even with Hasaranga missing the Asia Cup we saw earlier today that how effective their other spinners are when they took all 10 wickets against India.
 
Getting India out on 213 is a big task.

Sri Lanka proved that they have young talented players capable of challenging any team.
 
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