A Sandcastle In The Tide

As Arun Lal mentioned at the pitch report, they had 'worked very hard to try and make some runs on' the wicket and he admitted that the Hambantota wicket had 'not been famous for high scoring games.' He added that it used to have more moisture but the wicket that was made for yesterday's Sri Lanka VS India 1^st ODI was 'very dry; very hard; almost devoid of grass.'

Indians hold a reputation for winning the matches by their technically unusual, vulgar style of attacking batting. They haven't had great luxuries batting on seam-friendly, green wickets because of their batting style and technics. Their bowlers are not very consistent either and their fielding is hilariously humiliating, as they proved last night too, and is arguably the worst in the world.

While on the flip-side of the coin, Sri Lanka have got a pack of technically sound batsmen, who are not too aggressive either, and a very consistent and talented seam bowling department. Nuwan Kulasekara, Angelo Mathews and Thisara Perera are known for the consistency in their immaculate line and length and the capability to nip around the ball of the seam while Lasith Malinga holds the reputation for the consistency in his pace of a bullet and the accuracy of a champion archer on his toe-crushers and bumpers.

So, the pitch curator had laid on a grave lot of hard work underneath that disloyal wicket.

The toss is uncontrollable and the Indian captain MS Dhoni won it and elected to bat first though, their opening pair showed some discomfort against the new ball. Gambhir was bowled round his legs by Kulasekara and Sehwag was given a life when he was dropped on 0 by Dilshan, who is known to be one of the best fielders in the world cricket in the modern day. It seemed like if the ball took more time than he expected as of the resistance of the heavy wind. However, Sehwag was later caught on 24 by Kulasekara with a spectacular dive at mid-off of Perera though Sehwag refused to leave his ground, suggesting the umpires to go upstairs, showing his mother-nature. The TV umpire surprisingly gave him not out, making an immense controversy. Kulasekara took a groin injury with that dive and left the field and didn't come come back to bowl either. Sehwag was eventually run out for 96 and Virat Kohli, after being dropped a half chance during his twenties by Perera of his own bowling, went on to make his 12^th ODI hundred. At last, India put up a total of 314/6 at the end of the first half of the game.

In the reply innings, Tillakaratne Dilshan started with confidence and slashed an off-side delivery with disdain before being dropped a belly-button-high catch by Sehwag at first slip, hilariously. However, he was then given out, LBW, for 6 at a delivery that would have gone over the stumps by miles, of Irfan Pathan. Upul Tharanga played some smooth, eye-pleasing, ear-treating drives through the off-side before getting caught at first slip for 28, by Sehwag, which was tossed up by the mess Dhoni had made. Chandimal walked off like a gentleman, without waiting for the umpire's decission, after nicking one behind. Sangakkara showed the spirit of the game by refusing to take the extra runs that would have been 'over-throughs', which hit his bat unintentionally though, when he was running between the wickets. He made a brilliant knock of 133, making it his 14^th ODI hundred and Thisara Perera's 44 runs of just 28 balls and Lasith Malinga's fireworks in the final over took Sri Lanka to a marginal 21-run defeat.

- Sachintha Saputhanthri -

Smiling Through The Whimpers

Sri Lanka carry a good form through to the world cup and enters into the marquee world-clash as one of the hot favourites while Pakistan come in as the ‘dark horse’ after having to come through a row of tough situations which include match fixing scandals, player-bans and threats apart from losing the opportunity to co-host the big stage along with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India because of the security issues caused by the terror attacks in the country.

It was an important game for both teams after beating the minnows easily on their first games: Sri Lanka beat Canada by 210 runs at Hambantota while Pakistan beat Kenya by 205 runs at the same venue. After the reconstructions, the R.Premadasa ground provided the perfect atmosphere for a nail-biting game between the Asian giants. Shahid Afridi won the toss and decided to bat first considering the fact that it’s pretty tough to chase under lights on Premadasa wicket. After losing 3 wickets for 105, Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq got together to add a century-run stand to take them towards a competitive total of 277/7 in their 50 overs. The Sri Lankan spinners were pretty economical with Muttiah Muralitharan conceding only 35 runs in his 10 overs and picking up a wicket while the left arm spinner, Rangana Herath coming back into the side replacing Ajantha Mendis, picked up 2 wickets for 46 in his 10 overs. Sri Lanka however, really felt the need of their partnership-breaker, Lasith ‘Slinger’ Malinga and realised how big a part he plays in the SL seam attack.

Chasing a massive total of 277, Sri Lankan openers, Tharanga and Dilshan, got off to a good start by setting up a 76-run stand for the first wicket though the middle order couldn’t capitalise from there. The wickets of Tharanga, Dilshan and Samaraweera are considered unlucky though Mahela doesn’t seem to have overcome the little technical faults in his batting yet. Although he looks brilliant when he plays his elegant, classy strokes around the ground, he sometimes makes mistakes at good balls. His century in the last game against Canada was a treat to watch but the way he got out in this game was so frustrating: He just tried to stand there and glance the ball across the line from outside the off stump to midwicket instead of getting the front foot forward and playing it with a straight bat down the ground.

Unlike in his batting; Shahid Afridi was so consistent with the ball. He picked up his second consecutive four-for by taking 4 wickets for 34, following his 5 for 16 against Kenya at Hambantota in their first game and with the variation of spin and pace, he caused enough troubles to the Sri Lankan batting order. With the late fight back by the long lower-middle order, Sri Lanka managed to get 266, losing the game marginally by 11 runs in the end. However the major cause for the loss was not the batting but the lack of intensity and aggression in their bowling. It became the first game that Sri Lanka lost at home in a world cup game and Pakistan remain unbeaten against Sri Lanka in the world cup history winning all the 7 games they played against them.

Looking at the shiny side of the lost game, what Sri Lanka can be happy about is that with Chamara Silva finding his rhythm back, they’ve got a long in-form batting line up and if Malinga recovers soon and hopefully makes a comeback in the next game, it’s still not too late for them to grab the cup with both hands.

-Sachintha Saputhanthri-

The Dark Era of Classic Spirit

Sometimes I wish I lived in the early 19th century to watch the legends of the game mastermind its art. It would have been such a treat to watch Sir Jack Hobbs being hungry for runs, Sir Don Bradman’s masterpiece of batting, Sir Len Hutton’s classy drives, Sir Frank Worrell keeping it all along the ground; I feel unlucky that I wasn’t there to witness how great they were playing. But I enjoyed watching my time heroes: Glenn McGrath pitching the ball just outside the off-stump and making it dart around to flick the outside edge of the bat to be caught behind at the acrobatic slip cordon, Great Muttiah Muralitharan bamboozling the batsmen to get through the gate between bat and pad, Marvan Atapattu’s patient, long innings, Michael Vaughan’s elegant drives on the offside.

But the new era that dawned around the midway through the last decade, to me, is the downfall of cricket. The invention of Twenty-20 has brought the darkness into the game. It has caused to break the patience of elegant batsmen and to disturb the accomplishment of their batting as well as to reduce their foot-movements. Furthermore, it crunches the disciplined bowlers down on the ground to give an awful pleasure to the geek fans, who don’t enjoy anything else, but seeing the ball in the air.

And then came in the IPL, compromising the spirit of cricket for money and taking apart a big part of the international cricket calendar. I find most the changes that came out with T20 and around that time, so ridiculous: A ‘free hit’ after a no ball would do nothing but discouraging the bowler and the ‘super-over’ to get a result out of a tied game is even more ridiculous. They better put a coin-toss to find a winner rather than a ‘super-over’. I think cricket is being footballized or they are trying to match it with football or the other games. But the question is why does cricket need such kind of changes, which hurt its spirit, when it has an its own identity and a history of over 130 years at the international level?

Chris Gayle was recently pulled out of West Indies’ leading seat as he turned down the central-contracts, because he fancied the big lolly that he gets by playing for the IPL rather than the respect that he gets by playing more decent-spirited cricket at the international level for his country.

I find it making no sense when some geek fans say “the middle overs of 50-over games are rather boring”. What you enjoy in a One-Day innings are the various parts of it: first you survive with the new ball, then keep the scoreboard ticking; if you lost some early wickets, try and occupy the crease for a while and rebuild the innings with some steady partnerships and when you are into the closing overs of play, go hard at it and try and smash the ball around for some quick runs. However, England dumped 50-over games from their domestic circuit last summer and that could be an ominous gesture of One-Day-Internationals getting reduced to 40 overs per a side in the near future as well.

Adding much to worry about for the real cricket lovers, another T20 competition called ‘Champions league’ came into the already packed cricket calendar, reducing more international cricket.

As a consequence of those infections, Test cricket began to subside and ICC began to think about some more ridiculous changes to the greatest format of the game. MCC took on the then champions, Durham on a Day-Night, 4-day game with an un-traditional pink ball at Sheikh Zayed stadium, Abu Dhabi, in March, this year. But I guess they didn’t know that what they were doing would only tamper the spirit of the game even more. However they’ve found out some concerns about noticing the ball in the dark as the ball deteriorates. But the sad thing is, ICC hasn’t yet taken the idea of ‘Day-Night Tests’ completely out of its head.

If the things continue to move on in this way, we’ll be unable to find the whereabouts of Great, Old Test cricket, which has become a candle that is burning down to the ground. If we don’t get together to blow it off, it’ll be blown away into the history. But the thing is, what we can do to save it, still remains with a question mark.

-Sachintha Saputhanthri-

Forfeited Momentum

Coming into the 1st Test of the 3-match series against Windies, Sri Lanka hadn't got their front line seam attack in the squad. May be they are saving Malinga for the world cup, which is just around the corner, though I don't see why they shouldn't use Nuwan Kulasekara, who is probably the most consistent 'line and length' bowler in Sri Lanka at the moment. May be they have under-estimated West Indies or haven't given a worth for the Test series.

The team didn't look balanced with two spinners and 2 seamers instead of one spinner and three seamers, especially at a time when the young allrounder Mathews is still recovering from a knee injury and is unable to ball.

After losing the toss and having to bowl first on a healthy batting track at the splendid Galle International Cricket Stadium, Sri Lankan seamers didn't look consistent as they used to be. Although Thushara started off with a couple of maiden overs he couldn't stick to a consistent line and length while Dhammika Prasad was struggling to find his rhythm from the initial stage. West Indies openers were likely to lack their concentration in the first hour of the day though SL seamers were going too wayward to capitalise from it.

Playing the first game after having to hand the captaincy over to Darren Sammy, Chris Gayle was struggling to get of the marks initially though, once he did it with a cross-legged glance for four, he made sure that he took the control of the day's play and took the driving seat of the Windies innings. The young opener Adrian Barath and the debutant Darren Bravo made half-centuries to help Chris Gayle dominate the 1st day of the game with an unbeaten double-ton.

What Sangakkara has to learn from this is to do the first thing first. Use the best available team to try and win the Test series first and then prepare for the next year's world cup!