When talking about TM Dilshan's famous DilScoop my memory goes back to late 80s where I had my A/L studies at Kalutara Maha Vidyalaya. I am not sure whether Dilshan is scooling in 1988/89 but I have seen junior students playing Cricket everywhere in the ground. But the specialitiy here was they played 3-miss game (they put shoes or slippers in a space equal to bat's height as wicket. Passing the ball in 3 instances without touching the bat between those shoes means out). Our ground was a fairly small one but they played 25 odd places very close to each other. Distance between two playing spots perhaps 5-10 meters. Since they were playing in daily basis in those spots, they have bocome small pits. In a rainy day you could see them as tanks filled of water. For the reason these spots wear and tear, depth of them become 4-6 inches where at the bowling end there are no such level drop in playing plane. Therefore, bowler could see a batsman is somewhat shoter than 4-6 inches of his normal height. In the view of batsman he gets allmost every ball fast and on chest height. So that he could either play a pull or hook shot. But these kid are not technically sound to be honest.
Due to this factor, it is normal these young generation are conscious of innovating new shots. To be honest I have seen them playing un-authordox shots like dilscoop eventhogh it has not given such name nor globally accepted as a Cricketing shot.
Dilshan also must have played these type of Cricket during his school time and when playing in high class Cricket it must have been aided him innovating the shot. I am certainly happy if Dilshan himself read this and reply if this is true or not. I have just expressed my idea here. If Dilscoop is totally new shot, I appologise for writing this. I know Dilshan has very limited time to reply these type of queries but his brother Sampath could make a note on this.
But every Kavian(Old boys of Kalutara MV) will accept my point with happy memories of good old times they have forgotten for some time.
Subash Dilruk Kannangara
Initially I have written this as a facebook note on 05.09.2009 and thought of sharing it here.
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ReplyDeleteRecently, during Australian Tour of Sri Lanka, in an interview with TenSports, Dilshan stated that he hardly practiced the shot. During matches he initially bend his knees for paddle sweep and if the ball pitched in right place for Dilscoop he will execute it.
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