The pandemic was raging in Sri Lanka. Prabath Jayasuriya had nowhere to go. The grounds were empty; the gyms were shuttered down; the streets were lonely.
Then one evening in May 2021, his phone buzzed. A national selector’s voice crackled. He was in the squad for the Test series against Bangladesh. A dream was fulfilled. A rush-of-blood journey from Matale to Colombo a decade ago, uncertain times spent attuning with the big city’s ways, years spent on domestic dust bowls, had reached the intended destination.
However, a big turn of events awaited him. Two days before what could have been his debut, Jayasuriya failed the fitness test. The first — and the only time — that had happened to him.
“It was because my skin-folds were over the permissible limit,” he would later say. Some sections of the media labelled him “lazy” and accused him of hiding his fitness situation. In an interview to Prime Time with Rex Clementine, he would say: “I agree that I was not in great shape, but I never thought I would fail the test.” His replacement Praveen Jayawickrama would grab 11 wickets in the game. The door seemed shut.
That November, Jayasuriya turned 30. Some of his coaches began to worry whether he could cope with the setback, whether the selectors would thrust him into the wilderness forever.
“The worry was only for us, not him,” says Piyal Wijetunge, former spin bowling coach of Sri Lanka. “He took everything in his stride and started training with his club (SSC) soon after. He is that kind of a guy, never really lets setbacks affect him. If he is not selected, or dropped, he will try harder to get into the team.”