Dilhara Fernando: destiny's child

By S. Dinakar

KANDY, AUG. 20. ``I want to be fastest in the world,'' he declares and these are not empty words. Dilhara Fernando is on the fast track to stardom these days.

Hustling them with pace and bounce, making the hapless batsmen duck and weave, finding the edges, and rearranging the stumps. The new kid on the block is dangerous.

Yet, Fernando could so easily have never played cricket. It was an accident really that he started firing those thunderbolts. ``I used to play basketball because of my height. I liked the game,'' the fiery paceman told The Hindu.

Believe it or not, he was 16 years old when he took part in his first serious game of cricket. How he got to play that match is even more interesting. ``One day, on the morning of a match, my school team had only 10 players. They wanted an extra guy. So I was in.''

It was the beginning of an amazing journey that has seen him waltz his way into the national team. Something that also reveals the role of destiny in shaping one's life and career.

Back to that school game and Fernando's performance in it. He had bowled a bit with the tennis ball on the beaches of Kandana, a coastal town 20 miles off Colombo. And when the main bowlers were getting hammered, the captain tossed him the ball as an afterthought. Fernando shot out five batsmen and the rest is history!

It took just one match for his school, De Mahenod, to realise that Fernando's future was not in basketball. That was bad news for the batsmen.

Cricket became Fernando's passion. So much so that his father told him to concentrate on studies. ``But soon he realised that I had the ability to play this game.''

Fernando was by now the pace spearhead for his school, and once again destiny put its hand up. Arjuna Ranatunga, the then Lankan captain, and one of shrewdest brains in cricket, was invited to watch a local school tournament where he saw a big, strong lad making the ball whistle past the batsmen. `The Grandmaster' knew this boy was special.

Never the kind to delay things, Ranatunga was quick to pick Fernando in his side, the famous Sinhalese Sports Club. It also marked a giant leap for Fernando-from school cricket to one of the premier teams in Colombo.

He was raw, but he was also a natural, and it didn't take Fernando long to make the adjustment to a higher grade of cricket. He was red hot in the domestic scene.

However, trouble lurked in the form of an injury fast bowlers dread most-the stress fracture of the lower back. Fernando was referred to Alex Kontouri, Lanka's popular physio.

``He was extremely hard working. He recovered well,'' says Kontouri now.

Fernando's next big break was getting picked in the Lankan `A' team for the tour of Zimbabwe. He was impressive, and soon arrived the national call.

First strike

The young tearaway was selected for the Test match against Pakistan at the SSC ground. The year was 2000, and Fernando remembers his first strike. ``I had Mohammed Wasim caught at slips. Russell took the catch. I can never forget that.''

The South African tour that followed was a learning experience for Fernando. The pitches had pace and bounce and there were occasions when he got carried away. ``The wickets were hard. If we hit the pitch, the ball would seam.''

He did make the ball seam around in the Durban Test when he emerged with the first five-wicket innings haul of his career, but that was also a series when he went for far too many runs.

He was fast without question, crossing the 145-km barrier, but he needed guidance, someone to hone his skills. The Lankan cricket Board sent this fascinating paceman to the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai where he came under the eagle eyes of Aussie pace legend Dennis Lillee.

Lillee spotted the problem. ``My body was falling away at the point of delivery.'' This also meant he was sliding quite a few down the leg-side. The Aussie fixed the problem.

And Fernando says Sri Lanka's pace bowling coach Rumesh Ratnayake has also been of a great help to him. ``He knows the players very well, knows the technique, knows how to correct a fast bowler.''

Says Rumesh, ``There is another 20 per cent more left in Fernando. If he does that, he will become a phenomenon.'' The former Sri Lankan paceman is now working on making his front-arm ``a short-lever instead of long one.''

After he operated poorly in the first session of the Galle Test, Fernando says Rumesh gave him a timely piece of advice. ``He told me my length was too short. He asked me to bowl up to the batsmen.'' He did just that, the proof being the lightning quick off-cutter that left a well-set Mohammed Kaif clue less. ``I really enjoyed that dismissal. In fact, really enjoyed bowling on the green wicket in Galle.''

The Indians certainly did not enjoy it, for Fernando caused havoc with the second new ball-7-2-18-5. High-intensity fast bowling that rocked the batting side. India never recovered.

A lot of the batsmen might not know the Fernando story, but if you tell them, they might secretly wish that school game in Kandana had never happened!

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