IMAGE: Matheesha Pathirana celebrates the wicket of Nehal Wadhera. Photograph: BCCI
‘He should not play red ball cricket or even get close to it’ is the great Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s advice for Sri Lanka’s pace sensation Matheesha Pathirana.
Referred to as ‘Baby Malinga’, for his slingy action similar to Lankan great Lasith Malinga, the 20-year pacer registered superb figures of 3/15 to power Chennai Super Kings to a thumping six-wicket against Mumbai Indians in Chennai on Saturday.
Dhoni rates the young pacer as a genuine match-winner and believes Sri Lanka should nurture him carefully by preserving him for big tournaments like the World Cup, while keeping him away from Test cricket and ODIs.
“I personally think he is not someone who should play a lot of red-ball cricket. I think he shouldn’t even get close to it. Even in white-ball cricket, the 50-overs version he should play as less as possible,” said Dhoni.
Pathirana has become an important weapon with the ball for CSK with his amazing ability to bowl yorkers consistently at the death. This season, already he has picked up 10 wickets from seven games at an economy rate of 7.60 despite bowling most of his overs in the end. In fact, all his 10 wickets have come between the 16th and the 20th overs, during which he has conceded 123 runs in 16.2 overs.
Things are certainly looking quite bright for CSK as far as the bowling is concerned, going into the last few weeks of IPL 2023. With the experienced Deepak Chahar back to full fitness and Tushar Deshpande zooming to the top of the wicket-taking charts with 19 scalps in 11 games, CSK boast of a solid pace attack.
Photograph: BCCI
Mumbai’s Deshpande has been the unsung hero for CSK. Bought for his base price of Rs 20 lakh in the auction last year, the pace bowler has improved by leaps and bounds this season.
Before this season, he had played seven matches in total — 2 in 2022 and 5 in 2020 (for Delhi Capitals) — managing just four wickets, but this year he has…
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