There are a lot of opposition cricketers who steal the limelight against Bangladesh in their debut. They come, played and won – there are two recent examples of this in recent times. In their own soil, Bangladesh were single handedly defeated by Kyle Meyers of West Indies, who scored a double century in his debut and won a lost cause for his team, this time it was seen that Praveen Jayawickrama of Sri Lanka defeated Mominul Haque and Co. with 11 wickets in his debut. He also set a world record with this feat.
Now the question is why is this happening to Tigers’ over and over again? At the end of the match, the Bangladesh captain made a simple confession of not being able to do well against the debutants. “No matter how good a batsman is, if you can't bowl him in the right areas, or if you can't play according to the merit of the ball against a good bowler, he will be successful at the end of the day, which is how I feel.”
The Bangladesh Test captain admitted that Bangladesh suffers from a lack of knowledge about newcomers. “Video analysts definitely help in everything," he said. Those who are new have an added advantage. That was also the case with me. There is a lack of knowledge about newcomers.”
Meanwhile, Left-arm spinner Jayawickrama scalped 6 for 92 to reduce Bangladesh's first innings to 251 runs. In the second innings, he took 5 wickets for 86 runs and stopped Bangladesh to 227 runs. Sri Lanka won the match by 209 runs.
Jayawickrama also set a unique record of grabbing 11 wickets for 178 runs in the match. As a debutant, he is the highest wicket-taker in Sri Lanka’s history. Earlier, Akila Dhananjaya got 8 wickets for 88 runs on his debut. That record was also against Bangladesh.
Jayawickrama has also written his name in a world record. Although he has four players ahead of him when it comes to getting more wickets in Test debut, but he is leading in the left-arm spinner category.
Before Jayawickrama, Alf Valentine had the previous best debut bowling record among left-arm spinners. In 1950, the Caribbean spinner took 11 wickets for 204 runs against England in Manchester. After 71 years, Jayawickrama surpassed him. He took 11 wickets with less runs.