Sandy Strang: Scots just the latest victims of the 'gunslinger'

LET'S put Scotland's defeat to Sri Lanka in some kind of perspective. Lethal Lasith Malinga isn't just the scourge of Scottish batting. Coruscating pace.

Laser-like yorkers. Explosive round-arm bouncers. Devilishly deceptive slower balls without any perceptible change of action. And a trajectory so difficult to pick up that, back in April 2005, the New Zealand batsmen even asked the umpires to change the colour of their trousers as they desperately tried to decipher why they were losing track of the ball.

Facing Malinga is already an internationally-renowned duel with the devil. Factor in an unusually hot Edinburgh day giving succour to the Galle gunslinger's dodgy knees, and it's little wonder yet another unerringly-accurate Malinga barrage was too much for a Saltires squad facing him for the first time. They didn't even have the benefit of a "sighter" or two in the nets to get a feel for the phenomenon.

Long before the Grange last week, hostile Malinga had already claimed 239 Test and One Day International wickets and conclusively proved he's marked too hot to handle for most.