Dunith is an asset to the team, says spin coach Piyal

Dunith Wellalage is a good player and an all-rounder we’ve got after a long time and he is an asset to the team, said Sri Lanka spin coach Piyal Wijetunge.

Wellalage has a lot of skill. He is still raw, only 21-years-old and he is only learning how it is to play at international level. His skill levels are very good and his dedication is also very high . A spinner actually matures at the ages of 27-28. For him to be performing at such an early age I think he has a good future ahead of him. He is still not an end product. He has plenty of work to do. We can get a lot out of him in the future, said Wijethunga, the former National leg spinner who has been handling Sri Lanka spinners for more than twenty years.

Piyal Wijetunge gave credit to the High-Performance Centre (HPC) at the R Premadasa Stadium for producing quality spinners to the national team. It’s a gradual process. the credit should go to the HPC, they do all the hard work and keep on improving the spinners. The next set are almost ready to take on the baton. The four spinners in the squad are quite young, they have many more years to play for Sri Lanka. In the recent past we had 3-4 spinners who could do the job for us and this is very good move added Wijethunga.

Today Prabath Jayasuriya is the key leg spinner of Sri Lanka test team while Ramesh Mendis, Nishan Peiris also two off spinners. Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Dunith Wellalage and Jeffrey Vandersay are in white ball format. Two part time spinners Charith Asalanka and Kamindu Mendis also support the main spinners. Last test against New Zealand Pieris replaced Ramesh Mendis and got successful results. In addition Sahan Arachchige, Nimesh Vimukthi the promising spinners are in next in line and young Malsha Tharupathi who played for National under 19 side is the latest spinner next to them and they are all under observation of HPC.

Wijethunga also said Kamindu Mendis also bowler who can bowl with both arms . But his right arm is more strong and he also likes to bowl off spin than leg spin while his shoulder injury still not fully recovered and Kamindu is mainly use as batter but we are gradually build up his spin bowling with time management is more important for Kamindu’s training added Wijethunga.

Ruwan Kalpage another former Sri Lanka spinner played together with Wijethunga and spin legend Muttaih Muralithartan and all three from St. Anthony’s Katugastota while Kalpage also today works as SLC High Performance Center (HPC)as deputy Head to Jerome Jayaratne and they all are doing their duty to produce cricketers to the National level.

Wijethunga always works hard with spinners during the training while his presence always is a strength to spinners both home and away match series.

Wijethunga also pointed out Sri Lanka used more spinners than pacemen against the West Indies as opponent always shown more difficulties against spinners. We always use spinners strength and got home advantage (turning ball on this surfaces ) and our plan was well executed.

Every country plays to their home advantage. If you go abroad, it’s the role of the bowler that changes. If it is a fast bowlers’ wicket the spinner’s duty is to hold up one end for the fast bowlers to be effective. We saw it in the last England test series Prabath Jayasuriya did the job for us in the two tests he played. He also took 8 wickets in England.

Today we have different type of spinners and there are two right-arm leggies, both are different from each other. Wanindu Hasaranga is not the conventional type leg spinner while Jeffrey Vandersay is a conventional leg spinner.

Wanindu gets his wickets mainly through variations, Jeffrey with his conventional leg-spin. They are both different types. We had a reason to play two leggies against West Indies in the first ODI because they have shown a weakness against them.

The other reason is in his last ODI against India, Jeffrey took 6 wickets, so we couldn’t keep him out. Meanwhile at the second ODI Sri Lanka last minute brought in Maheesh Theekshana who has more experience at T-20’s and Theekshana was successful and his inclusion mainly due to weather conditions on that day and this plan also executed well to win the second game to get series win with one game to spare.