A letter to Indian cricket fan from Sri Lankan cricket fan

Dear Indian fan:

It had hurt us three years back when we saw those videos from Marine Drive and Connaught Place and Park Street from three years back. We, however, did not vow revenge or anything like that (if the team had, they had not let us know). If you had seen our players tonight, they were never arrogant in their celebrations.

The team did not have time to plot revenge: there was a time in 2011 when they did not get paid for eight months(yes, they had come runners-up in the World Cup despite that). They were offered proper contracts only in July 2012. The next year Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) had removed the stipulated players’ share from the International Cricket Council (ICC) events (25%), and it was only after Sanath Jayasuriya had stepped in that the players had agreed. They were not given the profit: they were only promised they would be given the same.

Can you imagine your men playing under such circumstances? No, I guess.

It did not end there. Jayasuriya did keep his word; when the players demanded 20% of the profit, he had put their proposal forward to SLC. When SLC had announced the fresh set of contracts, the ICC events share was not a part of it.

Take a moment to realise this. Put your men in their shoes. The men have been representing their country in the most high-profile event (and have been turning them into successes; they may not have been winning, but they have not exactly failed either), only to be told by SLC that they would not get a part of the profit from that tournament.

This reminded me of international cricket in the pre-Kerry Packer days when players were often told that if they did not want to play for the side there were plenty who would. Your own CK Nayudu, your first Test captain, had done the same to Vinoo Mankad, you may remember.

Anyway, four days before the tournament, SLC raised the topic to the Executive Committee. The players were announced incentives, but there were no ICC events shares announced for them. When the players insisted on the shares, SLC issued a threat that they would send a second-string side to the tournament. This happened on the day the players left for Bangladesh. Our heroes had left for the tournament without contracts.

You see why we don’t stone their houses the way you did Yuvraj Singh’s today? The reason is simple: they have been stabbed by their own board; we are the only ones backing them. With no assured contract, almost no Indian Premier League (IPL) contract against their names, with our own version of the IPL getting cancelled, the pride and fans are all they have while taking on the best of the world in a country away from home.

That is precisely why we never back out when it comes to supporting them: they have lost one final after the other, but we have never lost hope. Can you believe what you would have done to your men if they had lost four world tournament finals in five years? We had not gone after our players’ blood: instead, we had joked that it was our President’s turning up at the venue midway that had tilted the match West Indies’ way in the 2012 World T20 final.

Do you know something? We have grown up in conditions you have seen in newsreels and have read in newspapers, but have never really (I really hope you do not) had real-life brushes. We have grown up in a country where many of us were not sure of our safe return when we left home in the morning.

“Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse,” Keith Miller had said once. He had seen death from close quarters. So had we. Which is why defeats do not mean the end of the world for us. In those dark days of internal turmoil,Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva had kept Sri Lankan cricket alive. The 1996 World Cup had a role more significant in our history than you can imagine.

We fell from that zenith, and rose again; and fell again; in Muttiah Muralitharan we found our greatest cricket hero, in Jayasuriya a murderous marauder, in Lasith Malinga a rebellious freak; and then, in the two men who have quit this version of the sport today, the two icons we were left with.

They have given us a lot, and have got hardly anything back in return. The best we could do for them was to turn up in huge numbers and turn the band on, day in and day out. If they won, we were happy; if they did not, we had to accept it. It was like that in the 1980s. It has been like that in the 2010s as well. Three decades ago we used to lose in the league stages; now we lose the finals.

The fact remained that we had not won anything of note barring the 1996 World Cup. Eighteen years have elapsed since that. This win was long due. They have never given up hope in between: they tried, failed, tried, failed, tried, failed, tried, till they succeeded.

It has been our story all along.

It has been the story of the average Sri Lankan.

It has been the story of the Sri Lankan cricketer.

We may not have the best support, but we dream; and we do not give up when our dreams meet a dead end. We have a team where every man is a Robert the Bruce with no spider to show them the way.

We have not forgotten you, though. You [and Pakistan] had visited us before the 1996 World Cup when Australia and West Indies had refused to. We still owe you that.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful [and of late, rather peaceful] place. Come over for a trip some day. We will discuss all kinds of ICC event finals and have a laugh at how we manage to show up in them every now and then. Till then,

A Sri Lankan fan

Author : Abhishek Mukherjee  on Cricketcountry.com

Afridi and Vettori to captain Sri Lanka’s “North-East” teams

Six national captains, including four from Sri Lanka, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardane, Kumar Sangakkara and T. M. Dilshan, will lead seven Provincial teams in the forthcoming Sri Lanka T20-Premier League (SL-T20-PL) Tournament.

The seventh captain will be former Sri Lanka vice-captain, Chaminda Vaas. The Sri Lanka T20 Premier League will feature almost 35 international cricketing stars and will be the first of its kind in Sri Lanka.
The event organisrs, Somerert Entertainment Ventures (SEV) have found a window for the tournament which is sandwiched between Sri Lanka's tour of England and Australia's tour of Sri Lanka.

The event will kick off on July 15th and will go on for 18 days. Twenty four hotly contested matches, including the two semi-finals and the final, will be played at the R. Premadasa Stadium. There will be two matches on certain days.


Dashing opener T. M. Dilshan will lead Basnahira while Kumar Sangakkara (Kandurata), Mahela Jayawardane (Wayamba), Sanath Jayasuriya (Ruhuna) and Chaminda Vaas (Uva) will be the other captains.

Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi (Nagenahira) and New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori (Uthura) have been chosen to lead two provinces that were isolated from the game for ages due to the civil war.

Five overseas players could be registered to a provincial team but only four will be allowed to play in a match. Sri Lankan national selectors and cricket authorities have agreed to blood as many youngsters and almost 70 Sri Lankan cricketers will be registered in the seven team tournament.

Almost all Pakistani national cricketers will be invited to play in the SLPL. Factually, Sri Lanka was Pakistan's adopted home in the 2011 Cricket World Cup concluded last month as they played all their first round matches in Sri Lanka.

In addition to that, Chris Gayle and the Bravo cousins (Dwayne and Darren) from West Indies, Pathan brothers (Irfan and Yousuf) from India, Herschelle Gibbs, David Warner and Shaun Tait will be seen in action on Sri Lankan soil.

The availability of retired great Muttiah Muralitharan is not yet confirmed but some unconfirmed sources revealed that he is eager to play in the series.

Milind Rege, the tournament manager of the 2011 cricket World Cup will be in charge of all cricketing matters of the tournament. Rege is a former Ranji Trophy captain for Mumbai and recently retired from TATA corporation as a managing committee member.

Source : Daily Mirror

De Silva urges Sri Lanka to copy Australia

Sri Lanka's outgoing chief selector and former batsman Aravinda de Silva on Thursday urged players to develop the never-say-die spirit shown by Australia.

"We are superior in talent to Australia, but it is the character and the fighting spirit which we must inculcate in our players," de Silva, vice-captain of the 1996 World Cup-winning Sri Lankan team, told reporters.

A three-member Sri Lankan selection committee led by de Silva quit on Wednesday, less than a week after the team's defeat against India in the World Cup final inMumbai.

De Silva, who scored 6,361 runs in Tests and 9,284 in one-day internationals, said he felt players became "emotional" during the final as the match tilted in India's favour.

"Maybe they were thinking about lost opportunities and became emotional," he said. "This is the difference between an Australian side and ours. They don't give up the match until the last ball is bowled.

"They (Sri Lanka) should know how to fight until the last ball and not to give up the game. These are the things that we don't have in our culture."

Sri Lanka skipper Kumar Sangakkara and vice-captain Mahela Jayawardene have stepped down following the World Cup defeat, while Australia-born coach Trevor Bayliss' four-year stint with the team also ended after the tournament.




Source : THE TIMES OF INDIA

Sri Lanka vice-captain Mahela Jayawardene is considering legal action in response to commentary that implied he was guilty of match-fixing.

A state television broadcast suggested Jayawardene deliberately played badly for financial gain in Saturday's Cricket World Cup defeat by Pakistan.

Jayawardene said his lawyer was drafting a letter to "get to the bottom" of the accusation.

The allegation was also levelled at batsman Thilan Samaraweera.

Sri Lanka lost the game against Pakistan by 11 runs, with Jaywardene scoring two runs while Samaraweera scored one.

A commentary on Sunday on Sri Lankan state TV network, ITN, written by the editor of a state newspaper, Mahinda Abeysundara, said a businessman had bet about 18,000 dollars on a Pakistan victory and that there had therefore been what he called a "chorus to change the game".

The commentator then remarked: "We just think Mahela and Thilan may have changed the game."
The commentary was accompanied by slow-motion extracts from the match, sad music and blurry shots implying financial impropriety.

Leaving comments on social networking sites such as Facebook, Sri Lankan fans have expressed outrage at the broadcast.

One said: "How dare you tell that Mahela and Thilan are betrayers... this is so disgusting."
Another called the coverage "shameless".

Sri Lanka will face Kenya at the cricket World Cup on Tuesday.

Source : BBC Sports

'Hard decision to omit Jayasuriya, Vaas' - De Silva

 Aravinda de Silva, Sri Lanka's chairman of selectors, has said the exclusion of veterans Sanath Jayasuriya and Chaminda Vaas from the final squad was taken after looking at all options to select the best possible 15 for the World Cup.

"We were not going to waver from that and looking at individuals as such because we wanted the best team to ultimately go out there and represent the 20 million people in Sri Lanka," De Silva said yesterday. "That was the only reason why they were left out. Unfortunately not only them but it was a very hard decision and emotional thing for the four selectors also to leave out two great cricketers like that as they would have been looking forward to saying goodbye after a World Cup. But that's how life is. To be fair by everyone, those two cricketers have done so much for Sri Lanka cricket and we can never forget that."

De Silva said that it was entirely up to the two players to decide whether they wanted to continue playing. "I guess they have got a great future ahead to contribute towards Sri Lanka cricket and I hope they will do so. Through their experiences I am sure they will come back and help Sri Lanka cricket in the future. But if they want to continue playing they are most welcome to do so. I am not the one to decide when they are going to finish their careers."

"At the same time, Suraj Randiv has not done anything wrong to be out of the squad but it was unfortunate because he didn't fit into the combinations which we needed in the 15. Those are the three guys whom I really feel for at this moment."

Vaas however has a thin chance of playing in the World Cup if there happens to be an injury to Nuwan Kulasekera. "We consider Vaas as a new ball bowler but with Lasith Malinga and Kulasekera there he can only come as first change. When he does that he doesn't have the same effect as when he bowls with the new ball. Vaas had direct competition with Kulasekera. If Kulasekera gets injured we will have to consider someone like Vaas because he is the next best new-ball bowler in Sri Lanka. If we are playing Vaas we must have the maximum advantage of using him as a new ball bowler. The way Kulasekera has performed in the past one to one-and-a-half years, it is difficult to keep him out."

Dilhara Fernando was selected as a back-up bowler for Lasith Malinga, De Silva said. "What we have to understand is why we pick certain players and what we expect of them. Dilhara is a guy whom everyone might feel goes for runs on most occasions and sometimes bowls no-balls when he loses rhythm. But ultimately what we expect of him is to be a strike bowler and to replace someone like Lasith. In case of an emergency we need someone in the squad if Lasith doesn't play. Dilhara has got that extra bit of pace to hurry a batsman and with a bit of life and bounce on a wicket we would opt for him in the final XI."

On left-arm spinner Rangana Herath's inclusion, De Silva said, "We got two offspinners (Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis) and with Randiv we would have had three. The combination we were looking at was three spinners and we wanted some variation in the spin attack. We thought the best left-arm spinner in the country is Rangana so we had to opt for him. He's played only nine ODIs but we felt he is the best left-armer we got so we had to go with a bowler whom we can depend on."

Mahela Jayawardene, who has fared well as an opener whenever he has been given the opportunity, would be the third opener in the side after the regular pair of Tillakaratne Dilshan and Upul Tharanga.

"We decided to go with Mahela in case we required a third opener because we are playing only eight games and we don't want to bring in an extra player and upset the combination of the squad," said De Silva. "If it comes to a real push we will have to look at someone like Mahela at that stage or maybe someone else who is batting way down the order as an experiment."

De Silva said that they picked the squad very early (the ICC deadline is January 19) in order to give the selected players the opportunity of playing in the inter-provincial limited-overs tournament which starts on January 11. "That's a tournament which I want the players to be relaxed and enjoy playing some cricket with free minds."

De Silva also stated that he hopes to give maximum exposure to the selected World Cup squad of 15 during the upcoming three-match one-day series against West Indies. The matches are due to be played on January 31, February 4 and 6 at venues yet to be finalized. 

Source - Cricinfo

All eyes on the big one

They didn't have many opportunities in Test cricket but in 2010 Sri Lanka shaped up nicely for the World Cup 

For a year that included three tri-series titles, a first-ever one-day series victory in Australia, and a respectable showing in the World Twenty20, there was a strangely flat feeling about Sri Lanka's performances in 2010. The main reason is the lopsided FTP, which hasn't provided enough Test cricket - there were no away Tests this year for Kumar Sangakkara's men. Of their two home series, one was a result of the BCCI's new-found love of the long form, and the other was the rain-ravaged contest against West Indies, during which more time was spent watching the weather forecast than the cricket. 

In the Test cricket that was on offer, they were patchy. Their first five-day game came as late as July and was dominated by the retirement of their talisman, Muttiah Muralitharan. Fittingly Sri Lanka's greatest match-winner won them one last game before bowing out. It turned out to be their only Test victory of the year. That series against India ended in a draw as Sri Lanka lost the P Sara Test despite Thilan Samaraweera's best efforts. The matches against West Indies could have been a good indicator of how Sri Lanka will fare in the absence of Murali, but torrential rain through the series frustrated fans. 

The supporters won't be complaining about Sri Lanka's one-day form, though. Winning every series they played in 2010, barring the Asia Cup, where they dominated the league stage before faltering in the final, Sri Lanka enter the World Cup year as a formidable outfit. Their tri-series triumphs may be quickly forgotten but what will remain in the memory is the back-from-the-dead victory against Australia in Melbourne, where Angelo Mathews and Lasith Malinga produced a world-record 132-run ninth-wicket stand to deliver an improbable win. 

What has made Sri Lanka so dangerous is that they aren't over-reliant on one or two stars; match-winning performances have come from a number of players. Few people will be able to guess who their highest wicket-taker of the year is - 21-year-old allrounder Thisara Perera. Another young allrounder, Mathews, continued to show he has the talent and temperament for a long international career at the top, while offspinner Suraj Randiv has also made a bright start. 

The new talent supports the big names who were part of Sri Lanka's run to the 2007 World Cup final. Tillakaratne Dilshan didn't quite hit the heights of 2009 but made match-winning centuries in the finals of two tri-series, Mahela Jayawardene and Sangakkara remain prolific, Malinga continues to befuddle batsmen, and Murali is still around for a final tilt. 

In the only global tournament of the year, the World Twenty20 in the Caribbean, Sri Lanka again made it to the knockout stages before losing to the eventual champions. This time Sangakkara's side ran into England, who turned in a supremely composed performance to knock Sri Lanka out in the semi-finals.

Fading star

Perhaps the most pathetic sight of the World Twenty20 was that of 40-year-old Sanath Jayasuriya, once an unstoppable marauder, scratching around for 15 runs in six innings. He hasn't played international cricket since, but remains hopeful of making next year's World Cup after finding a place in the 30-man provisional squad. 

New kid on the block

With Murali's career nearly over, and Mendis' star still struggling to reclaim the lustre of 2008, Sri Lanka slow-bowling options were looking thin. Suraj Randiv stepped up. He lacks extravagant turn but his extra bounce and discipline soon made him the first-choice spinner across all formats. In an eventful year, he was at the forefront of Sri Lanka's push for a series win over India at the P Sara Oval, involved in a controversy over a deliberate no-ball, and was electric throughout in the field. 

High point

There was a maiden one-day series win in Australia, but the uplifting farewell to Murali in Galle was a heart-warmer in a year in which the game was awash with dispiriting headlines. It was sweetened by the win set up by Murali's eight wickets, the last of which carried him to the milestone of 800. 

Low point

Surrendering to a weakened India in a deciding Test will hurt, though losing to the world's top side isn't as disappointing as having virtually the entire series against West Indies washed out - in a year when Sri Lanka were starved of Test cricket. Sangakkara called it the "worst series of his life". 

What 2011 holds

Sri Lanka have two big-ticket events in the first half of the year: first, the World Cup at home, for which they among the favourites, and then the challenge of a full tour of England, which will test how far Sri Lanka have progressed as a Test side. 

Source - Cricinfo