“He is an excellent death bowler,” Dhoni told Star Sports. “A bit similar to Malinga. Also what happens with his action, the margin of error for him is quite big. With a slingy action he doesn’t get a lot of bounce. Which means even if he commits an error of one yard, it is not like it will hit the middle of the bat. It wouldn’t bounce a lot.
“Also with his action it is slightly difficult to pick. And he has got that slower one also. So you have to watch him very carefully. Which means when you spend those extra seconds watching the ball and he is bowling at a decent pace, it becomes quite difficult to consistently hit him.”
“That surprise element still comes from the ball coming from a completely different angle to the one you are used to. His accuracy was good enough and once he adds those variations he can be the sort of bowler who disrupts the T20 game. I don’t think he is ever going to be an economical-type bowler but he can certainly come back, take wickets and put the fear of god into some tailenders.”
Pathirana’s impressive debut does raise the question of whether he could have been tried sooner. Vettori certainly felt so. “The way they used [Dwaine] Pretorius for an extended period of time and then [Dwayne] Bravo had some injuries, [Chris] Jordan and Milne early on… So he was certainly the last cab off the rank. Potentially when they are out of the tournament you would have thought someone like him could have been thrown into the mix just to see what he could do. Tonight he showed he can be effective at this high level.”
“We could have pushed Shivam up the order but that defeats the purpose of giving Jaggi a game,” Dhoni said. “If it was a tactical decision proper, midway into the tournament, we would have pushed the left-hander up the order. But we wanted Jaggi to have some time in the middle.
“We will try to give guys ample time in the middle. At times when you are at this stage you feel, oh, you want to win one more game, but at the same time you want to give a chance to guys who we haven’t been able to feature in the XI. Still try to pick a good XI. Not like we are playing a lopsided XI. But in the coming game also we will look to do that.”