Men’s T20I spells of the decade, No.4: Malinga rolls back the years to obliterate New Zealand

Lasith Malinga, 5-6
Sri Lanka v New Zealand
Pallekele
3^rdT20I, New Zealand tour of Sri Lanka
September 6, 2019

The spell

Swing, dip, accuracy, and an anomalous action: Lasith Malinga arrived at the international arena, armed with these attributes, as a young and fearsomely quick fast bowler. Possessing an uncanny ability to hit the blockhole and rattle the stumps almost on demand, Malinga at his prime was a fielding captain’s dream, and a batsman’s nightmare.

These were the very attributes with which he shocked South Africa, with four wickets in four balls, to nearly consign them to a defeat nobody had seen coming, at the 2007 World Cup. It was a staggering achievement in the young career of a one-of-a-kind talent. Twelve years after that crowning achievement, Malinga stunned all observers when he did it all over again, this time against a different, but equally hapless, opponent in New Zealand.

Not only was it unreal because of the magnitude of the accomplishment, but also because this was a vastly different Malinga. This was not the 2007 monster, who exhaled flames. This was the Malinga of 2019, who was 36 years old, pot-bellied and on the wane, whose waist circumference was the subject of a running joke on social media.

And to think that that reality could have faded away in an instant, had the foot landed a millimetre outside, or if it had come down to the umpire’s discretion, with replays proving inconclusive. When all was said and done, it had seemed as though a fraction of the heel had landed behind the line. Malinga elatedly pointed at the number on his jersey – 99 – and for a few short moments, all was well with Sri Lankan cricket again.