Sri Lanka’s Marvan Atapattu may have started his international career indisastrous fashion, recording five ducks in his first six Test innings, buthe is now riding high and is widely acknowledged to be Sri Lanka’s mosttechnically accomplished

Rex Clementine20-Oct-2001Sri Lanka’s Marvan Atapattu may have started his international career indisastrous fashion, recording five ducks in his first six Test innings, buthe is now riding high and is widely acknowledged to be Sri Lanka’s mosttechnically accomplished player.During the recent Test match against Bangladesh the 30 year-old-Sri Lankanvice captain completed his fifth international double hundred, a feataccomplished by only three other players – Sir Don Bradman, Wally Hammondand Javed Miandad – in the history of Test cricket.Marvan Atapattu hits a ball on his way to making 201In a recent interview with CricInfo, Atapattu discussed various issues, fromhis disappointing start to his career to his growing reputation as a "bigscore" player.These are the excerpts of the interview.Q. How do you feel about the way things are going for you in internationalcricket at the moment?"The team is doing well and I am happy to be one of the 11 players who aredoing well am feeling great about the way things have gone for us in recenttimes."Q. How about being the vice captain of the side? How do you look at thisrole?"Many people are asking about it but personally, for me, being the deputy isnot a big deal. I know my responsibilities. Even if the duties are taken offfrom me I’ll be doing the same things with the bat or in the field. It’s nota big deal. I take it game by game, I try to do the little things I knowbest"Q. In recent times we have seen your appetite for big scores. From the eighthundreds you’ve got, you’ve converted five into double tons. Your commentsabout your desire to go for big scores?"In the longer version of the game I believe that you should go on once youhave made a start. That’s what I do. Never satisfied, always wanting to goon and improve. Also, there have been many instances where I have got outfor low scores. On many occasions I have got out below 10. So, when I get astart, I think you’ve got to make amends for your earlier failures and tryto go on."Q. You yourself admit that you’ve got out below 10 on many occasions. Infact in your Test career from the 84 innings you’ve played, you have beendismissed below 10 on 34 occasions. Does that mean that you are a shakystarter?"I am an opener and when you face the new ball bowlers fresh that canhappen. That’s the way I take it. But now you’ll tell me that’s not the casewith all the openers. Yes, each batsman is different. You see if you get outfor a good ball you can’t help it. It’s important to survive the initialburst and once you do it it’s a matter of going on and making a big one."Most of the batsmen get out quickly after getting the hundred. How hard doyou work to continue after passing the hundred?"I think the important thing is concentration. I concentrate very hard inthe middle even after passing the 100 mark. After going past the 100 mark, Ithink I am on zero and start to work from that point. After sometime I findanother hundred on the board. As I said earlier there have been too manyoccasions where I have got out for low scores, but when I have had theopportunity I have made the most of it."Q. You have scored four of those five double hundreds at home where it’sextremely hot and the conditions are really tough. How demanding it isphysically?"To be very honest with you I have not felt that uneasy. That’s basicallybecause I enjoy my stay in the middle. One of the other reasons I think whyI don’t get physically tired is due to fact that I collect most of my runsthrough singles and twos and more importantly I rotate the strike. So up tonow it’s not been that hard."Q. What do you reckon as your best double hundred?"The best was the one I got in Kandy against an awesome Pakistani attackwhich comprised of Wasim, Waqar, Razzaq and Mustaq Ahamed. I cherish thatinnings. We were two down in the series and I was hit byWasim early on. Itwas my best innings overall."Q. So many double hundreds, but not a single triple hundred?"Like to get one before ending the career. Any batsman would love to haveit. If I can get a triple hundred before ending the career that would be adream come true."Q. Well you had the chance to make a triple hundred against Bangladesh, butyou retried having made the 200?"Unfortunately most of us didn’t realise that. I was asked to retire there.As you say, there was the chance to get a 300, but didn’t realize howimportant it can be after a couple of years. When Bangladesh improve itwouldn’t look as bad as it looks now. We never thought about it and Idefinitely missed a chance there."Q. Do you regret it?"Yes. Now when I think about it I regret. The team management came out withthat idea to retire. They gave me the chance to make the 200 and then theysaid you better retire and give the others a chance and we’ll finish thisgame off. But that’s how it goes and people learn by their mistakes."Q. If we analyse your career, you’ve got a good average of 47 at home. Butaway from Sri Lanka it’s a paltry 29. Your comments?"Well if you analyse with most of the players that’ll be the case. Most ofthe batsmen will have a healthy average at home and a not so good one awayfrom home. But I admit that I have not been consistent outside the country.I am looking forward to improve."Once again some analyses show that you have prospered in the first innings,when you average over fifty, but struggled in the second innings, when youaverage only 17 or 18?"That’s something I realised very recently. In fact, it was one of theemployees of the cricket board who pointed that out. I gave that a seriousthought and I wonder how I didn’t realise that until someone else pointedthat out. If you ask me the reason, I think I relax a bit. And also there’sa psychological aspect I guess. If I fail in the first innings theconfidence will be down and I’ll then fail in the second as well. That’s anarea I badly want to improve on in the longer version of the game."Q. Let’s talk about your earlier days. I don’t think you would want to talkabout that too much. But anyway it was a disastrous start and how difficultwas it and what sort of things were going on in your mind at that stage?" Words merely can’t express what I felt and the pressure that I was under.It was a very difficult period. But in a way I am happy about that. I didn’tget the easy runs some of these guys are getting at the highest level. IfGod had given me them early on I don’t think I may not have worked has hardas I have on my game. I knew that it’s a matter of just one innings and Ihad to wait for seven long years for that one innings."Q. Do you feel that you were pushed too early onto the international scene?"I don’t think so. It can happen for a bowler, but I don’t think that itapplies for a batsmen. There are so many batsmen who have started very youngand done remarkably well. But it’s different for the bowlers."Q. Do you say that the hard times you had early on helped you to be a bettercricketer?"Yes. I realised how hard it is to make just one run at this level.Personally, for me, to get off the mark makes a huge difference. I don’tknow whether you all can see it from our side, but for me as soon as I getoff the mark things start happening. My feet start moving and I happen tofind the middle of the bat. I don’t know whether it’s purely psychologicalbut the truth of the matter is that. Once I get off the mark I feel reallycomfortable."Q. Any future goals?"Not really. What I want to do is just try and be in the side as long as Ican. As long as my body can meet the demands of international cricket I wantto represent the country."