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

Ramanayake brushes aside concern over Malinga

Sri Lanka's bowling coach Champaka Ramanayake has brushed aside any concerns about Lasith Malinga's form, saying that with the number of games Sri Lanka have been involved in Malinga was bound to have a poor game or two. Malinga comes in to the Asia Cup after an inconsistent performance in the Commonwealth Bank series in Australia, in which he was the leading wicket-taker with 18 scalps in 11 games but went at 6.21 runs per over.

Ramanayake discovered Malinga when Malinga was bowling for his college in Galle, mentored him at Sri Lanka's cricket academy and describes Malinga as his "rock". He said conditions in Australia and the fact that Sri Lanka had such a packed schedule there - they played five games in 10 days at the end of the tournament - affected Malinga.

"In Australia there was not much reverse swing, so he struggled a bit," Ramanayake told reporters at the team hotel in Dhaka. "So I hope he'll learn new tricks. He's okay; everyone can have a bad game or two when you play 11 games in such a short time."

Read More on - espncricinfo

Mendis and Dilshan tormented the Australians ............

Sri Lanka's captain Tillakaratne Dilshan struck a compelling century then marshalled his team neatly in the field to secure a 35-run victory over Australia in the first Twenty20 international in Kandy.

Sent in to bat at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium, the hosts were headed for a total of about 150 before Dilshan (104, 57 balls, 12 fours, five sixes) and the allrounder Jeevan Mendis (29, 19 balls) combined for a stand of 104 runs in a mere 45 balls to lift the hosts to 198 for 3. Dilshan hammered 67 from his final 23 deliveries, a sequence that effectively decided the match.

The Australians' chase was undone by the flat offspin of the debutant Dilruwan Perera (3-26), who provided a reminder there is plenty of slow bowling depth for the Sri Lankans to utilise across the limited overs and Test series to take place through August and September. Rangana Herath (1-11) also posed plenty of problems, much as he had done on his debut against the Australians on their 1999 visit to the island.

Dilshan's was exactly the kind of opening statement a captain desires to make, providing plenty of evidence the Australians will be up against a feisty opponent on this tour. They will also need to sharpen their fielding, as fumbles were a recurring theme of the team's first international since a limited overs series in Bangladesh in April.

Mitchell Johnson, John Hastings and Shane Watson were all taken for more than 11 runs per over, while curiously the spin of Steve O'Keefe and Steve Smith was not fully utilised despite offering a greater level of economy than any of the faster men.

By contrast the Sri Lankans employed three spin bowlers in their defence of the target, and in truth no-one other than the belligerent David Warner (53) ever looked comfortable enough to impose serious pressure on the home attack.

Needing 10 runs an over virtually from the start, Australia's reply was inconvenienced by the early swing of Nuwan Kulasekara (2-39), who found a way through Watson in the third over. Warner was soon finding the boundary, and on one occasion cleared it with a line drive over the bowler's head.

Shaun Marsh was less settled, and misread the first over from the debutant Perera to be lbw for four. David Hussey appeared fortunate that no-one on the field was fully alert to an apparent thin edge behind off the bowling of Dhammika Prasad, but next over he was nowhere near a sharp off break from Perera that tilted middle stump.

Cameron White managed only one boundary before he too was defeated by a Perera offbreak that straightened from around the wicket, and at 63 for 4 Australia's chase was looking decidedly sick. It deteriorated further when Steven Smith was utterly confused by Herath and stumped, while Dilshan had the luxury of dropping Warner then being able to accept another chance. O'Keefe and Johnson provided nuisance value, but by then the equation would have been too steep even for Dilshan.

Brett Lee had shared the new ball with the left-arm spinner O'Keefe in a nod to a surface that offered some bounce but also turn. Mahela Jayawardene managed a pair of crisp boundaries to long-on and backward point, but in the third over squirted a Lee yorker into his stumps.

Dilshan immediately took the attack to Lee, following a top-edged hook for six with an artful glide through gully for four, meaning the over reaped 14 runs as well as a wicket. He then sought to unsettle Johnson with a series of impudent gestures. Dinesh Chandimal also made a bright start, but on 11 was hurried onto the back foot by Johnson's pace and slid ungracefully into his wicket - only the fifth such dismissal in T20 internationals, its rarity underlined by the bowler's miffed reaction.

Tensions were evident between Dilshan and Watson, the Australian firing a return throw towards the batsman, who fended it away with a glove. A curious appeal by the Australians posed the question about obstruction, as the game's laws have been changed to disallow any by a batsman out of his crease, but the umpires waved it away.

Kumar Sangakkara cracked boundaries over mid-off and square leg to raise a 50 stand with Dilshan, but the next over he flicked ineffectually at a Watson slower ball and handed a simple catch to Cameron White. Mendis announced himself with a reverse-swept boundary from the bowling of Smith, then gave a passing impression of no less a left-hander than Sangakkara himself with a pull shot of some flourish when Watson dropped fractionally short.

John Hastings' slower balls were losing their novelty, and Dilshan took a heavy toll by swinging thrice to the legside for boundaries either side of an exceptionally cheeky reverse-dab past short third man - the over was worth 20.

Mendis and Dilshan tormented the Australians in the closing overs, piling up 67 runs from overs 15-18 to turn a middling total into an intimidating one. Too often the touring bowlers missed the yorker length, and when they did strike it Dilshan's wrists were supple enough to send the ball skidding through gully to the rope.

On 84 when the final over began, Dilshan cracked a pair of sixes then mis-scooped a boundary to go to three figures, before adding another to take the Sri Lankans to the cusp of 200 - a total they would not have contemplated at 94-3. Australia's bowlers, and batsmen, have the task ahead of them.

SOURCE  : ESPNCRICINFO