Sonal Dinusha wanted to be at the nets within hours of single-handedly preventing what seemed like an imminent Indian win in the second Test here.
Celebration, after all, was hardly a distraction for the Sri Lankan, who picked the sport to distract himself from the harsh realities of his life.
Dinusha averaged a phenomenal 140 in the two-Test series, scoring 420 runs with three hundreds, two of them in the battle-of-attrition that was the drawn second Test. India, however, won the series having clinched the opener in Galle.
It was a remarkable performance from the five-Test old all-rounder, whose first bat was a gift from his sister. She borrowed money to buy it for him as the family mostly lived in financial distress.
“He was interested in basketball too as many children are in Sri Lanka. He used to train very seriously. But his school coach Susantha Felix Dias drafted him into the cricket team after watching him play casually. He did not have a cricket bat or other gear,” Dinusha’s trusted coach Ashan Priyanjan told PTI in an interview.
“His sister borrowed some money and bought a bat for him, his first cricket bat. The family did not have much money and whatever it has earned now is because of Dinusha. It’s their only income.
“He is very attached to his father, mother and siblings. I think he is attached to cricket in the same way,” he said.
A few days before the Test against India started, Dinusha had dialled Priyanjan. The conversation was short and precise.
“He said ‘Sir, India has all varieties of spinners. Need to prepare well’. This was the main point of our discussion. He calls me before every game,” Priyanjan said.
They headed to the familiar surroundings of the Colombo Cricket Club (CCC). Priyanjan brought in left-arm and off-spin bowlers and Dinusha practiced his sweep and reverse sweep for hours at nets.
It was reflected in his immaculate batting against Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Manav Suthar (all left-arm spinners) and Saransh Jain (an off-spinner).
Dinusha scored 420 runs across the Galle and Colombo Tests, and 173 of them came through sweeps.
In that process, he also overtook Joe Root (160 runs) for scoring most runs while playing sweep against spin in a Test series.
Priyanjan was not surprised to see the success Dinusha had against Indian spinners, which he says was not solely because of their pre-tour training sessions.
The will to prepare hard is ingrained in the 25-year-old from early years.
“I first saw him first as a school cricketer. He was playing for De La Salle school then and their team did training at the CCC where I was coaching. He was 11 or 12 then but even at that age, his enthusiasm and dedication to cricket was remarkable,” he said.
Priyanjan then gave an example of Dinusha’s clarity of thought.
“I told him once that he needs to have a good sweep shot to be successful against spinners because he will play a lot of cricket in Asian countries. From that point onwards, he practised that shot for some two hours at nets, just sweep,” he said.
But how did this deep commitment to cricket take shape inside Dinusha?
Priyanjan said cricket was the left-hander’s distraction from penury at home.
Soon, Dinusha graduated to one of the most prestigious institutions in Sri Lanka — the Mahanama College where he met another one of his formative coaches Sonal Dulshan Alwalage.
Alwalage was immediately impressed by Dinusha’s talent and willingness to work on his game.
“He is a very humble and hard-working person. He had a tough childhood, and therefore he always has his feet on the ground. Now, he is like a member of my family,” Alwalage, now a Level 2 coach with Sri Lanka Cricket, said.
But the close bond between them never came in the way of some hard training sessions.
“He loves to stay at the crease and play long innings. He takes a lot of joy in batting. I remember once he made a big hundred (159) for us (Mahanama) against Richmond College in Galle, and he came to bat when we were three down early on,” he said.
“He was just 19 then. But showed a lot of maturity while rotating the strike, picking his bowlers and slots in the field to score runs. The way he guarded tail-end batsmen in that innings was amazing as we won on the first innings lead,” he recalled.
That also explains how Dinusha managed to stitch match-saving partnerships with late order batters like Keshara Nuwantha, Prabath Jayasuriya and Lahiru Kumara in the drawn second Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club.
Former Sri Lankan batter Avishka Gunawardene, who worked with Dinusha during the Sri Lanka A tour to Australia, remembered his adaptive skills.
The Aussie quicks — Mitchell Perry, Liam Scott and Henry Thornton — were peppering him with snorters and he asked Gunawardene to prepare a separate net session by throw down specialists.
“That day I realised how good he is at solving a problem. He was struggling against short balls at Darwin, but he was never afraid of it. He came to me and asked to oversee a few net sessions where he faced a lot of short balls from our team’s throw-down staff.
“In the next two (unofficial) Test matches he made 105 and 88. That level of commitment and maturity really sets him apart from many other cricketers of his age. He just thinks about the game. Nothing else,” he added.
Priyanjan chimes in.
“He only thinks about cricket. I am sure one day he will lead Sri Lanka. He is disciplined and a natural leader. He joined the club when he was 18 and stayed with us to become a senior here.
“He now captains CCC where we have international players like Dhananjaya de Silva, Kamindu Mendis, Vishwa Fernando, Asitha Fernando etc, and everyone respects him. They all know Dinusha’s commitment to cricket,” he said.
Commitment is the key word here. Priyanjan delves into that part.
“Immediately after the Test match (against India) he called me. He wanted to come to training on Friday at the CCC because he wants to play in a T20 league in the first week of September and a Major League 50-over match on August 31 for the club.
“I told him to take a few days rest after such a big Test series against India. He said: ‘That’s ok sir. The series is over, now I want to make the club win those matches’.”