It wasn’t so long ago when Sri Lankans were unanimously criticizing Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan for asking his batters to come off the field after an initial no-ball call was rescinded.

This incident happened in the sixth and final league match of the Nidahas trophy. In the end, Mahmudullah Riyad stayed on and won it for Bangladesh, putting the fans in a mode of frenzy.

Fast forward three months in June and Sri Lankan players actually refused to take the field to commence the day three. They had to be persuaded by the board to get on the pitch and begin the day’s play.

All of this happened because they thought that they had been treated unjustly – even though new evidence shows otherwise – as captain Dinesh Chandimal was charged with tampering with the condition of the ball on day two, which prompted the umpires to change the ball and award West Indies with five extra runs.

In the end, day three began after a delay of two hours. As luck – or karma – would have it, it was those two hours that might have robbed Sri Lanka off a win as the second Test between West Indies and Sri Lanka ended in a draw.

Shannon Gabriel – the elite late-blooming fast bowler of Test cricket – was on fire as he took five wickets in his first bowling innings and a mammoth 8 wickets in his second.

Despite that, Sri Lanka – who posted a score of only 253 in the first innings, thanks to an unbeaten 119 from captain Chandimal – were on top after the conclusion of three innings of the Test.

West Indies made 300 in their first innings with help from almost every batsman as all of them got a start. The star of their first innings batting was Devin Smith, who scored 61 while Shane Dowrich made 55.

Trailing by 47 runs, Sri Lanka responded well but with an initial stutter. At one point, they were 44 for 3 and were in real danger of being whitewashed by the Caribbean kings.

They, however, managed to conjure 342 runs with the help of some lower-order batting by Roshen Silva and Niroshan Dickwella – who made 48 and 62, respectively, and played an excellent support role to Kusal Mendis, who top-scored with 87 runs.

With a lead of 295 runs, Sri Lanka had just a fragment little under a day to win the game. In the end, however, bad light only allowed 60 overs to be played while West Indies were batting as they saved the Test by finishing with 147 for 5.

One can now only wonder as to what could have happened had Sri Lanka gotten an extra two hours – a session – to bowl at against the Windies. They might have had that had they not been naïve and refused to take on the field on day three.

As they say, karma is a bit** - and it always comes back to haunt. Sri Lanka, we expect, have gotten the memo now.

 

Scores

Sri Lanka – 253 all-out

Dinesh Chandimal – 119 (186) | Shannon Gabriel – 16-4-59-5

West Indies – 300 all-out