Can Dinesh Chandimal, KL Rahul make the jump?

COLOMBO: A few days back, both KL Rahul and Dinesh Chandimal were busy gulping medicines while watching India hammer Sri Lanka in the first Test in Galle. While 'KL' was suffering from fever, Chandimal was struck by pneumonia. In fact, if not for the International Cricket Council (ICC) giving him a "special permission" to use an inhaler, the Sri Lankan captain would have struggled to breathe properly.
Both can be excused for being anxious about their recovery. In Rahul's absence, India's replacement openers Shikhar Dhawan and Abhinav Mukund made their opportunity count, while Lanka crashed without much fight and missed their captain's solidity.
The careers of both these talented batsmen have run parallel to each other, even though Chandimal bats at No 4, has played 20 Tests more than Rahul, and has begun leading the Lankan Test team after Angelo Mathews quit captaincy following the ODI series loss to Zimbabwe.
Both started out promisingly: After falling for single-digit scores in his debut Test in Melbourne against Australia in Dec 2014, Rahul slammed 110 in Sydney to show his mettle. Chandimal began by scoring fifties in both innings against South Africa in Durban in the 2011 Boxing Day Test.
However, both have struggled to sustain momentum and have dazzled sporadically.
When he last toured here, Rahul was a 'famine or feast' batsman, as his scores (7, 5, 108, 2, 2, 2) suggest. In both innings of the SSC Test, he was out leaving deliveries which hit the stumps. For the past year, though, he's become more consistent. He slammed six half-centuries in seven innings in a tough series against Australia at home, before being affected by injuries to the hamstring and then shoulder.
It's a delicate phase for the 25year-old, but he's lucky that Kohli backs him to the hilt. "He played the practice game and he looked solid. He has batted really well in the last couple of seasons for us. It's important for us to make him feel that this is his spot. And it won't be changed because of unfortunate events that happen outside of the playing field or injuries that you can't control. He has really stuck it out in that phase. It's been hard for him, because he was batting so well and then he was out because of this (illness).
"It's very important to make him feel secure and he deserves it because he has given us those big performances when the team has required them the most. He is a guy that needs to be backed and we as a team, as management and me as captain all back him 100%," Kohli said about the Karnataka batsman.
Chandimal, on the other hand, fell so much off the radar that he even lost his place in the side. However, he's shown glimpses of his class in recent times. There was that magnificent 162 he hit against India in Galle in 2015 which swung the first Test in Lanka's favour before Rangana Herath spun India out. "There was a lot of turn on that pitch. We were about 150 runs behind. I wanted to attack quickly and wipe out that deficit, and then try to score 120-150 further runs, and put them under pressure in the fourth innings. I took a risk as I thought if I tried to just stay, I would also get out," he recalled.
His other classy effort was the 132 and the 211-run partnership he shared with the other centurion Dhananjaya de Silva, against Australia here at the SSC last year, which came after the Lankans were reduced to 26 for five on Day One by a rampaging Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon. "I thought that if I can keep Australia in the heat for (at least) one day, I would be able to score runs in the third session," he recollected on Wednesday.
Certainly, these knocks speak about his class, but it's time Chandimal churns out those specials more regularly.
It'll be interesting to see in which direction the careers of both these talented batsmen go from here.