The withering away of Sri Lanka is probably the saddest of cricket’s many sad tales

For a large portion of the last four days, it wasn’t so much India vs Sri Lanka as it was the Indians competing among themselves.

It was Shikhar Dhawan, first desperately and then enjoyably, battling to keep his spot in India’s opening hierarchy. The outsider Abhinav Mukund gritting it out to prove he belonged in the squad. Ravindra Jadeja in a friendly fight for wickets and bragging rights with the other best Test spinner in the world, Ravichandran Ashwin. And Virat Kohli, fighting (and succeeding) to shake off a poor run of recent form.

Sri Lanka were not involved in any of these battles. And when international, elite-level cricket is reduced to this kind of one-dimensional level of competition, the alarm bells must toll and toll loud.

Painfully uncompetitive

The worst insult you can heap on a fighter is to tell them not to turn up for a highly anticipated contest, to escape while they are still hale and hearty. Sri Lanka could not be accused of this, they did turn up all hale and hearty, flaws intact. But painfully enough, perhaps it would have been better if they hadn’t.

Not for one instant was even one passage of play in this drab Test match anywhere near competitive. Not once did Sri Lanka even attempt to threaten, it was that easy for Virat Kohli and his troop. Yes, you will look at the scorecard and see those individual marks. But forget Nuwan Pradeep’s six-wicket haul, Angelo Mathews’s 83, Dilruwan Perera’s 92 or Dimruth Karunaratne’s 97. That would just be scraping the barrel and even that hardly left a scratch on India, let alone hurting them.

Virat Kohli’s team were fantastic and clinical but they could and should have been challenged. There were phases when they deliberately played at only 50-60%, and you could hardly blame them. Why put in the hard yards when everything is handed over to you at a platter, sometimes even when not asked? The bigger challenge for them was not just to defeat Sri Lanka but to do it by breaking as little sweat as possible – a task which, fair to say, they went and over-achieved.

Transitional hell

But what can you really say about Sri Lankan cricket after that performance? The time has passed when they can hide behind that oft-repeated, convenient “transition” word. It is now two years since Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara retired. Two years is a long time to make peace with the retirement of legends. It is a period when any international team worth its salt is expected to, for the lack of a better word, get with it. Other teams have done it, so why haven’t the Lankans?

India struggled with transition, losing some of their greatest players and yet, are now the No 1 Test team having won 18 of their last 24 Tests. Australia shook off the loss of some big names to achieve a feat thought quite unthinkable: beating India in a Test at home. South Africa lost Jacques Kallis but tided over it. Sri Lanka don’t lack talent, but most of the times that talent is sitting on an injury hearse rather than perfecting his skills.

In isolation, if you look at a Kusal Mendis cover drive or a Karunaratne wristy flick, you can detect the rough of a diamond. And that’s where it gets the most frustrating. This is not a team of straggling, no-hopers with absolutely no ability. No, they have skills, unique, typically Sri Lankan skills and if they had been taken care of properly, Sri Lanka could have well have pulled off more results like their 3-0 whitewash of Australia last year.

Utter frustration

But they don’t and won’t be doing so anytime soon, because their foundation is all over the place. After three balls on a good length, a pacer will bowl a nice, juicy half-volley on the pads. Their spinners will drop it short when all that is asked of them is to tie up an end. Their batsman would rather play a shot in anger – an ugly one too – rather than deciding to grind it out.

Their fielders do not think about diving to save a boundary. When they do, they will probably get injured. There will be no intensity, the keeper and the close-in fielders will all remain mute spectators, happy to watch without providing encouragement. If it is depressing to even read, imagine how depressing it can be to watch.

Of course, one of the reasons for this is the many problems the Sri Lankan cricket board faces. There have been corruption cases, financial issues, even a bizarre sex scandal and perhaps the fact that they are able to put out a cricket team is itself a big deal.

But this is the Emerald Isles, the country that gave the world feistiness in the garb of Arjuna Ranatunga, mystery through Muthiah Muralitharan, flamboyance in the name of Sanath Jayasuriya and classy legends via the likes of Sangakkara and Jayawardene. To watch a proud cricketing nation wither away its glory, despite having so talent, is among the saddest of cricket’s many sad tales currently.

As for India? They will not care as long as they win the series 3-0 with handsome margins. But perhaps, just perhaps, somewhere deep in Kohli’s ultra-competitive mind, when he is going to sleep with the gleaming trophy next to him, a stray question might suddenly appear from his subconscious: I’m itching for a proper challenge. Can I ring up Steve Smith again?