The veteran Sri Lankan spinner Rangana Herath has announced that he will hang his boots from international cricket after the conclusion of the first Test in Galle of the three-match Test series against England. He has already informed the selectors that he is reluctant to play through an entire series.
Herath made his Test debut in 1999 at the Galle, thus becomes a sentimental venue for him. However, he also needs only one more wicket to join Muttiah Muralitharan in having taken 100 wickets at the ground. It was at the same venue where the veteran left-arm spinner’s career got reignited at the age of 31, when he took 10 wickets in a Test against Pakistan in 2009, after having been suddenly called up to the Test squad while he was playing league cricket in England.
The 40-year-old spinner has not played a complete three-Test series since January 2017, has since left two India series early due to injury, before playing no more than one of the three Tests in West Indies earlier this year. Herath has had to manage knee injuries for several years now; the strain of carrying Sri Lanka’s spin attack on his back since the retirement of Muralitharan is understood to have caught up to him.
ALSO READ: Keshav Maharaj wants to learn from Rangana Herath
Herath’s retirement will leave the Islanders in huge trouble as the spin attack will now be dependent on offspinner Dilruwan Perera for the last two Tests against England. Sri Lanka also has three other spinners in the squad: all-sorts offspinner Akila Dananjaya, left-arm wrist spinner Lakshan Sandakan, and left-arm orthodox bowler Malinda Pushpakumara. However, out of the remaining spinners, only Dilruwan has played more than 10 Tests.
There is no doubt about the fact that Herath’s retirement will also bring to an end one of the most remarkable careers in modern cricket. Not only is he the 10th most successful Test bowler in history with 430 wickets, all but 360 of those dismissals came after he had turned 31, with Herath having struggled to maintain a place in the Test side in the first decade of his career. No bowler has also taken as many as his 230 wickets after turning 35. If he takes a 5-wicket haul in his final Test, he could move up to seventh on the all-time list, passing Richard Hadlee (431 wickets), Stuart Broad (433) and Kapil Dev (434).
Herath is also the last active Test cricketer to have made his debut in the 1990s. The Galle Test will commence on November 6.
