Kumara and Rabada - A tale of two young pacers

Kumara and Rabada - A tale of two young pacers

Lahiru Kumara's rise through the cricket ranks has been so swift and successful that it might seem he was always destined to become a Test fast bowler. But even the Sri Lankan prodigy needed a stroke of fate to put him on track. In his early teens, Kumara was a strong hockey player at his school in Kandy, Sri Sumangala Vidyalaya, and it took an intervention to put him on course to becoming his country's brightest bowling prospect.

"One day, I was playing a hockey game for my school and got hit on my neck by the hockey stick," he said on Tuesday. "I was in the hospital and by the time I returned home my mum had thrown out all the hockey equipment. That was the end of my hockey and then I randomly started playing cricket. Eventually, I got picked for the school team. Then I went on to tour Malaysia with the Sri Lanka Under-15 team and that was the real start of my cricket career."

It takes perseverance to become a fast bowler in Sri Lanka, a country where first-class teams are known to open the bowling with spinners. It takes something special to become a fast bowler in Sri Lanka and make the Test team at 19. It takes guts and a clear head to then take a five-wicket haul in your first innings against a serious Test team. After taking 6 for 122 in South Africa's first innings on Tuesday (January 3), Kumara has now done all of that.

It seems absurd to think that just five months ago Kumara was on tour in England as an unknown fast bowler playing for Sri Lanka's Under-19 side. It took just one match to launch his career - a youth Test against England Under-19 in which he took 11 for 134. He was picked in Sri Lanka's squad for the tour of Zimbabwe on the back of it, despite having just two first-class games under his belt, and it was there that he had his only easy break.

Tours to Zimbabwe are practically invisible to the rest of world cricket, so when Kumara began his Test career with a first-ball duck and then, barely 20 minutes later, sent his first Test delivery zinging down the leg side for five wides, it was easy enough to put it all behind him. He finished the innings with figures of 1 for 90, but the '1' was memorable and important. With Zimbabwe's best batsman, Peter Moor, on 79 and building a 132-run stand with his captain Graeme Cremer on a dead pitch, Kumara sent down a bouncer that threatened to knock Moor's helmet off until he fended it towards gully. Cremer's helmet was knocked clean off his head moments later, and Kumara's ability to generate pace had been signalled. "I clocked somewhere around 145.8 kph in Zimbabwe, and that's the fastest that I have bowled in Test cricket," he said. "I'm looking forward to step it up some more."

It was his pace which broke through Hashim Amlas defences on the opening day at Newlands - a wicket that Kumara highlighted as his favourite - and which ruffled JP Duminy later in the over to yield a catch down the leg side. Temba Bavuma was bounced out later on, and on the second day Kumara had three batsmen, including centurion Quinton de Kock, all caught behind. Only another quick, Ravindra Pushpakumara, has taken a Test five-for at a younger age for Sri Lanka and that was against Zimbabwe.

Pushpakumara is not Kumara's hero - rather that is Dale Steyn. "I like the way he runs up to the crease, he is very smooth," he explained. Although taller and more strongly built than Steyn, Kumara's action also flows rhythmically, which bears well for the future. While Suranga Lakmal's accuracy and probing length provide the obvious threat for Sri Lanka with the new ball, Kumara's pace and awkward short delivery offer them the variation required with the older ball.

All of which could be used to describe the other young tearaway who imposed himself on the second day at Newlands. Kagiso Rabada has idolised Dale Steyn since he was a young boy, and provides the pace that South Africa look to when their metronomic opening bowlers have been unable to break through. Although his rise was not quite as meteoric as Kumara's, he went straight from the Under-19 World Cup-winning side into franchise cricket (skipping provincial level along the way), and by the end of the year, he was playing for South Africa. At first glance, it appeared that he was being fast-tracked at indecent pace due to South Africa's desperate need for a new black hero, but at every level Rabada proved his quality.

On Tuesday, after Vernon Philander and Kyle Abbott had spent a frustrating hour beating the bat of Sri Lanka's openers without finding the edge, South Africa required something different. Rabada provided it when he rifled in a short ball that Kaushal Silva could only fend onto his stumps. The door was open, and after tea, Rabada burst through with three wickets in five overs to go past 50 Test dismissals in just his 13th match. "He bowled a very good spell for us just after tea that really set up the rest of the game for us," said Philander. "He has got those moments and spells in him. There's still a lot of be seen of 'KG' and hopefully he can fire in the rest of the series for us as well."

Steyn will be nearing the age of 34 by the time he makes the comeback he has promised. The injury he is attempting to recover from is a serious one and any suggestion that he can return to anywhere near his fearsome best is, sadly, fanciful. But he was watching on from the stands at Newlands on the first two days, and will have returned home knowing that his legacy lives on in the form of two bright prospects for world cricket.