Tillakaratne Dilshan: The Swiss Army knife of cricket

He knelt down on one knee- his head lowered; eyes set on the ground. It was what could be termed as a gesture of capitulation. For ages, batsmen have averted their eyes or ducked under to avoid the wrath of the speeding leather. This was what gave bowlers a sadomasochist pleasure.

This was the goading that made bowlers have one more go at the batsman for there is no better enjoinment for an infiltrator than the sight of a receding army. This was what made them sniff blood. This was what made them regale themselves with the crepitation of cracking skulls.

But, much like King Leonidas of Sparta, Dilshan was hatching a vicious plan behind the façade of surrender. The 144 kmph missile was soon launched over the wicketkeeper’s head and miles into the stand. Neither King Leonidas nor Dilshan feared the opposition. And there is no man more dangerous than a man who is happy to die.

A man for all occasions and needs

For a long time, Dilshan was Sri Lanka’s Swiss Army knife. He was the one stop solution for the many ailments of the team. He was the wicketkeeper when the team needed a wicketkeeper. He was the short-leg when the team needed a short-leg. He was the point fielder when the team needed a point fielder. He was opener when the team needed an opener. He was the finisher when the team needed a finisher. He was the opening bowler when the team needed an opening bowler. He was the captain when the team needed a captain.

Every time the team needed someone, Dilshan became that someone. He was Sri Lanka’s favourite troubleshooter. He was the Ctrl+Alt+Delete of the team management.

Dilshan scored well in excess of 2000 runs batting at number six in tests and is one of the very few batsmen to have accomplished that feat. Bored by it, he moved up the order and scored another 2000 runs as an opener. Murali hated bowling with the new ball. So he bowled with the new ball whenever his team needed. Whenever Sangakkara was exhausted by batting through an innings, it was Dilshan who took the burden of crouching and squatting behind the stumps.

He was there where it was tough to field. He prowled in the point region during the first powerplay and then patrolled the long-off region during the slogfest at the death. And in Tests, as Murali spat poison with his off-breaks, it was Dilshan who formed a barricade at short-leg, at times even catching full blooded slogs. He is probably the only player to have opened the batting, opened the bowling, kept wickets and captained the team. As if they are not enough, he also went on to feature in a local movie.

Dilshan was far from being perfect. But Sri Lanka’s success relied heavily on imperfections. Being rough around the edges was what made Sri Lanka imposing. The team did well not when they played by the rules but when they broke it. Like a good lawyer, Sri Lanka often found a way around rules. They weren’t a ray of light to travel straight. Instead, they were a stream of water that found its own path.

Sri Lanka couldn’t find a proper opener. So they found a short-cut in Sanath’s bulging forearms. Orthodox spin wasn’t working, hence they resorted to the mystery of Murali. Bowlers with a higher arm action didn’t even last the length of the board officials’ promise to revamp the domestic structure, so they came up with a round-arm Malinga.

In the stringent orthodoxy Mahela and Sanga brought to the national team, Dilshan stayed true to his national identity. What if you can’t whip a length bowl angled at you? You can always ramp it over the keeper!

Dilshan gave Sri Lanka a different dimension

Dilshan took risks. Dilshan took risks like a meth addict taking meth. Dilshan didn’t imprison himself with math or numbers, or with the useless piece of data analysts throw at you apprising you of the many different ways you could fail should you tread down the perilous path. There was only one thing Dilshan was under the control of- instincts. He listened to his heart. And his heart always told him to look at the opportunities; never at the threats.

Sangakkara and Mahela were cautious, cautious to the point that they, at times, failed even to take the chances that could have helped the side be better than what it was. They played it safe. Perhaps, with more players like Dilshan, Sri Lanka could have been dominant and not just consistent.

Great teams take great gambles. Taking risks can either escalate you to the level an emperor or reduce you to a destitute. Given the sort of risks he took, Dilshan could have been benched, dropped and might have retired in complete oblivion from a different profession. But Dilshan took that gamble and now he is Sri Lanka’s best ever limited overs player.

Dilshan was a liberator. In a sport shackled by the obsolete Victorian morality and strict adherence to decorum, Dilshan was a rebel. He had everything in him that earned the wrath of the conformists. From his bohemian facial hair to the ear stud, he challenged propriety.

If the cover drives were played with the front foot to the pitch of the ball, Dilshan played them with his front foot outside the leg stump. If balls short outside of off stump can only be cut, he reverse-pulled them over short third man. Dilshan showed the world there was no one way of playing cricket.

Sometimes, unorthodox works better

It is true that Dilshan wasn’t a great technician. But why is technic so important? Who decides that this is the way a ball should be hit? Who devises a mechanism that would fit every batsman? After all, Sanath Jayasuriya, with his technic, averaged more than Marvan Atapattu, one of the most technically sound batsmen, in Tests.

Mahela’s cover drives may have been more elegant; Sanga’s might have been silkier, but none played a cover drive that was as authoritative as Dilshan’s. An exquisite cover drive or an ugly hoick that results in an outside edge over the slip cordon- they are both going to result in the same thing. Hundred ugly runs are always better than 20 beautiful runs.

Dilshan was stupid; stupid enough to raise his head and rush to the bus driver to instruct him on the directions he needed to take as bullets flew past him; stupid enough to accept the captaincy of a team that had been abandoned by both Mahela and Sangakkara knowing there were tours to England and South Africa awaiting; stupid enough to stare Shaun Tait, Mitchel Starc and Mitchel Johnson in the eye and then hit the latter for six fours in an over.

Dilshan was brainless. It is not without reason that he was nicknamed the Starfish. He thought less. Too much thinking was one of Sri Lanka’s Achilles heels during the Sanga-Mahela era. Dilshan made sure a team consisting of Sanga and Mahela didn’t turn into a monastery. He let instincts take control. He did what he felt. He acted on impulse. Dilshan’s strength lied not in his brain but in his muscles.

Perhaps, with more muscles and less brain Sri Lanka could have become invincibles. But in retrospective, we can only speculate. Sometimes, to be the best you can be, you ought to be foolhardy. To be foolhardy, you need to be crazy. Dilshan was crazy. That is how he became the best.

He did it his own way

Dilshan was a cold blooded murderer. He killed the spirit of cricket in cold blood. He dropped to his knee and ejected his tongue out with his hands raised and turned away from his body like a cartoon character that tries hard to feign a kungfu master. He asked Suraj Randhiv to bowl a no ball at Sehwag when he needed only one run for his century. He roared at Kohli like a besotted wolverine when he dismissed him in the 2011 World Cup final. Spirit to Dilshan was what chemists use or what makes children search under their bed at night. Why should one play by the spirit of cricket anyway?

Being good spirited is not going to win you matches. Gamesmanship triumphs sportsmanship. You win by scoring more not by smiling at oppositions. Twenty years down the line, no one is going to look at the way you played cricket. What matters is that Argentina won the soccer world cup in 1986, not that Diego Maradona scored a goal with his hand. After all, it was “the goal of the century” that triumphed “the hand of god”.

What matters is that Garfield Sobers was a great all-rounder, not that he scored a century while being drunk. What matters is that Viv Richards was a devastating batsman, not that he was a bogan. What matters is that Miandad was Pakistan’s best batsman, not that he raised his bat at Lillee. What matters is that Imran Khan was a great all-rounder, not that he scraped the ball with a bottle cap. Only accomplishments shall stand the test of time, not the spirit of cricket the exclusive use of which is to glorify losers.

Gutsy to the core

Dilshan had guts, something sadly most of his compatriots were bereft of. He had the guts to celebrate the way he did after dismissing Sachin in the 2004 Asia Cup final; guts to pick up the bat and open the batting and pummel bowlers; guts to don the gloves and run out Misbah Ul-Haq in a test match; guts to instruct Randhiv to bowl a no-ball; guts to open the bowling in a World Cup quarter-final and dismiss the opposition captain; guts to lead a side in turmoil through controversies; guts to handover debuts to youngsters when everyone was in discordant with him; guts to bent down and catch a 144 kmph thunderbolt from Mitchell Starc and ramp it back into the sky like a lightning strobe; guts to glower at Mitchell Johnson, who had wreaked havoc on England barely a year ago, and hit him for 24 runs in an over. Dilshan had guts- several tons of them.

Dilshan was a true Sri Lankan. It must be told that Sanga and Mahela were too perfect to be Sri Lankans. Dilshan loved fun. He was a prankster who lived in blithe. The island is not too different. Dilshan was born a Muslim, studied in Jaffna, a predominantly Tamil area, then became a Buddhist and married according to Hindu customs. And did I tell you that he is trilingual? In Dilshan, Sri Lanka found itself. Dilshan was everything Sri Lanka was and wasn’t.

Dilshan was original. He was cricket’s first 360-degree batsman. His limited foot movement once drew parallel to Virender Sehwag. He could have become Sri Lanka’s AB de Villiers. He could have chosen to become Sri Lanka’s Sehwag. But he remained Dilshan, a water that was ready to take any shape that its team required. As he retires from cricket nothing can better describe him than the shot he invented – the Dilscoop^TM .

He was audacious. He feared nothing, not even the prospect of going to hell. He was what Sri Lanka should have been. He is what Sri Lanka should be. He was Sri Lanka’s Leonidas. He was the best. He was the beast. He was Dilshan.