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sri-lanka
Video of Sehwag’s 293 v Sri Lanka
By Will 2 months ago, No Comments; be the first!
If anyone has it, do leave a comment. Not yet seen a single ball of it.
No Comments »UWMBCA Welegedara
By Will last year, mid-November, 9 Comments »
Good job I’m no longer on Cricinfo comms. I’d have had a field day today. “And here comes Uda Walawwe Mahim Bandaralage Chanaka Asanga Welegedara from the pavilion end, but he offers a stray on Dravid’s pads who flicks Welegedara – that’s Uda Walawwe Mahim Bandaralage Chanaka Asanga Welegedara, not the other one – through midwicket for four more.”
What an exhausting mouthful of a name.
9 Comments »Sri Lanka v West Indies, 2nd semi-final
By Will last year, mid-June, No Comments; be the first!
Please Jimmy, will you fix it for West Indies to reach the final? A Pakistan-West Indies final would be mouth-wateringly unpredictable. Preview of today’s match here.
No Comments »Sangakkara’s account of the attack
By Will last year, at the start of March, 3 Comments »
You really need to read this.
3 Comments »I was sitting next to Thilan Samaraweera and close to the young Tharanga Paranavitana. For some reason I moved my head to get a better view and a split second later I felt a bullet fizz past my ear into the vacant seat. Fortunately, as a team, we remained quite calm. No one panicked. After what must have been two minutes standing still, we urged the driver to make a run for the stadium just a few hundred metres away: “Go, go, go” we shouted.
The truth is we owe our lives to the courageous Mohammad Khalil, the driver. I will forever be grateful to him. The tyres of the bus had been shot out and he was in grave personal danger, exposed to gunfire at the front of the bus. But he was hell-bent on getting us to safety and, somehow, he got us moving again. Had Khalil not acted with such courage and presence of mind most of us would have been killed.
Standing still next to the roundabout we were sitting ducks for the 12 gunmen. We only found out afterwards that a rocket launcher just missed us as we began moving and turned for the stadium gates, the rocket blowing up an electricity pylon. Khalil saw a hand grenade tossed at us that failed to explode. Someone must have been looking over us because right now it seems a miracle we survived.
The real victims are Pakistanis
By Will last year, at the start of March, 5 Comments »
I don’t have much to add to today’s news which wouldn’t feel or sound contrite. The sense of inevitability was gut-wrenchingly strong that cricketers would be used as pawns in terrorists’ games of attention-seeking. It was going to happen at some point: a high-profile event, part of daily life for peaceful Pakistanis, now disrupted to the point of ruin.
In fuelling their own flawed agenda, they’ve not only ensured international cricket won’t be played in Pakistan for a significant amount of time, but they’ve brought the country closer and closer to being a failed state. Not a bad morning’s work, really.
But the real victims are Pakistanis themselves. If the last few years have been rocky, the next decade looks every bit as unsettled.
One final question: how long before Barack Obama wades in?
5 Comments »Lara’s Test record in danger
By Mark Tilley last year, at the end of February, 3 Comments »
A word on Younus Khan. The Pakistani captain stands on the verge of history going into the final day of the first Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In an incredibly high scoring game, Younus has contributed 306 runs to his side’s current score of 574-5 and needs another 95 to beat Brian Lara’s record score of 400 not out. The insanely flat pitch has helped but it’s a special effort to score that volume of runs and, record or not, Younus deserves as much acclaim as possible.
The statisticians will be having a field day whatever happens tomorrow in Karachi. Can Younus do it?
3 Comments »Sri Lanka cannot – must not – tour Zimbabwe
By Steven Price 2 years ago, mid-October, 5 Comments »
Steven Price is a freelance journalist in Zimbabwe
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This week’s news that Sri Lanka’s players and board have opted to play in the Indian Premier League rather than honour a signed commitment to tour England next year has been noted with interest inside Zimbabwe’s dwindling cricket community. They have sent a clear signal: when the choice is between money and playing for your country then cash is king. The question now is what will happen when the decision is between playing for your county and morality.
Sri Lanka are scheduled, according to the ICCs increasingly meaningless Future Tour Program, to visit Zimbabwe sometime in the next few months. According to the blinkered logic of the ICC, there is absolutely no reason the series should not go ahead.
However if you speak to anyone inside the country (anyone, that is, not in the dollar-rich inner circle of the Zimbabwe cricket board) there is increasing incredulity that anyone can seriously consider playing given the current situation inside the Zimbabwe.
The ICC might drone on about sport and politics not mixing (Pakistan might raise an eyebrow or two at that suggestion) but there has to come a point, somewhere, when even the most blinkered logic realises enough is enough.
By the United Nations’ own estimates, almost half of Zimbabwe’s 10 million population are on the brink of starvation. Ignoring the whys and wherefores of the reasons for that, can Sri Lanka’s players really sit in their cosseted five-star hotels in Harare and Bulawayo and eat their bountiful meals while half of the very people serving them are starving?
The tourists will not be harmed. Zimbabweans are peaceful people. And besides, the state-run police and security forces will ensure only the handpicked few get near enough to even shake their hands. But the issue is not security. By touring, the Sri Lankans will be giving credibility to Robert Mugabe’s insane claims that things are OK. How can they not be when cricket sides are happy to tour? No longer can anyone seriously maintain that the cricketers will not be used as a political tool.
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Cricket has all but ceased inside Zimbabwe despite the propaganda of the board. School cricket is dead outside the few surviving private establishments, through no fault of ZC – the schools themselves are dead. Teachers have fled the country in thousands and there is no money for books, repairs or salaries of those that remain. Inflation, now 240,000,000% and rising, saps the will to live.
Club cricket is in a similar state. Almost all the good, qualified coaches have left, along with a steady flow of local players, and for most there is no way of maintaining facilities or buying equipment. The only few clubs that continue to prosper, and the ones where visiting ICC dignitaries are shown, are those such as Tashinga with close links to the government.
The chances of the Logan Cup taking place this season are also diminishing. The veneer of normality and the illusion that the game is thriving across the land was maintained last year by ZC bussing players from Harare to other regions to boost the playing strength of areas where the game was dying.
The decision over the Sri Lanka tour will have been made in Dubai this week where the ICC executives met. The thought that Peter Chingoka, a man banned by the European Community because of his overt links to the Mugabe regime, could fly business class to such a meeting and be wined and dined in a luxurious hotel while his country starves underlines for many the hypocrisy of the ICC.
The question now is whether, given the collapse of the power-sharing agreement and the impending humanitarian disaster, anyone can seriously want to play cricket in Zimbabwe. Sri Lanka’s players were quick enough to take a stand when money was at stake. We can only hope they are as quick to rest on their morals.
5 Comments »Ajantha Mendis
By Will 2 years ago, mid-April, 15 Comments »
I approached yesterday’s one-dayer between West Indies and Sri Lanka with something of a spring in my step. This was a surprise for many reasons, but it’s explained by the glowing reports that gushed from the media – Cricinfo included – surrounding Ajantha Mendis, Sri Lanka’s great new spinning hope. He is a legspinner, an offie, bowls googlies, toppers, flippers and doosras and no one quite knows what to make of him. He wasn’t quite so mercurial last night, but what fascinated me was his grip. He seems to grasp the ball between the tips of his thumb and middle finger, which looks decidedly precarious – but Sri Lanka encourage the unconventional (Murali, Lasith, etc). Other nations, England in particular, breed orthodoxy and anything less is usually considered nasty and foreign.
Anyway, this bloke looks the real deal. In 19 first-class games he has 111 wickets at 14 apiece. In ODIs, he’s taken 40 wickets at 11 in just 20 games. Watch out, world.
15 Comments »Sri Lankans rattled
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of April, 4 Comments »
I’ve had my eye off the proverbial the last 24 hours, so am surprised and excited to see West Indies’ bowlers have rattled Sri Lanka’s top-order. As I write, they’re 109 for 6 and lead by a slender 94. Poor old Windies haven’t won at home since 2005 and since 2000 the locals have only celebrated seven victories.
Update: Samaraweera makes 125 and West Indies need 253 to win. Nuff bloody said.
4 Comments »Back to where we belong
By Will 3 years ago, at the end of December, 5 Comments »
Well that was brief and relatively painless, like a plaster being ripped off. But have a look at the scar!
England are back to where we belong. We’ve bullshitted our way to obscurity since winning the Ashes, and no amount of excuses about player unavailabilty can paper over the cracks which, in Sri Lanka, widened to cavernous proportions. This is a new era, certainly, but it reeks of the 1990s. Welcome back, England.
What did you make of the tour?
5 Comments »Galle in a race against time
By Will 3 years ago, mid-December, 3 Comments »
Tuesday should be a point of symbolic closure for the people of Galle, Sri Lanka’s ancient fortress of a city, when England and Sri Lanka play their third Test at the ground which was devastated by the Tsunami in 2004. However, things are not looking remotely promising. Suffice to say, the ground appears to be not only weeks behind schedule but unfit to host a Test, which is a great shame – mainly because it will overshadow what Sri Lanka hoped would be a turning point.
Look at the dressing rooms for starters:
Andrew Miller is there.
England fight but falter
By Will 3 years ago, at the start of December, 7 Comments »
What a cracking day it was. My mate messaged me shortly after it, having only caught snippets, and was surprised at my post-match adrenaline. Today was Test cricket at its gnarliest, epitomised by Ian Bell and Matt Prior’s stand. They played magnificently and it took a genius, Muttiah Muralitharan, to dismiss them both. With them went England’s hopes of salvaging a draw (if not a win). Had the tail managed to wag, England were about 20 minutes away from the safe confines of a draw owing to the fading light…but it wasn’t to be.
It was fun on comms, too. In the last three hours we had a consistent 40,000 people reading the live scorecard. That’s a heck of a number, and several hundred emailed in to say hello. We had people from Warsaw, librarians in Warwick and a school-teacher with his feet up setting his pupils a long (and quiet…) test.
What made Murali’s day all the more remarkable was that he was wicketless for most of the day. Only on receipt of a juicy, shiny new ball did he strike, and how, with the crushing double blow of Prior and Bell.
Worrying for England, they only have three days in which to recover – and Matthew Hoggard won’t be part of their Colombo gameplans. Come on down, scattergun Steve Harmison.
What did you make of England’s performance? Or, for that matter, Sri Lanka’s?
7 Comments »Double hat-tricks
By Will 3 years ago, at the start of December, 2 Comments »
Hat-tricks are rare enough, but double hat-tricks? They be very rare indeed. Tharaka Kottehewa took one today for Nondescripts Cricket Club against Ragam in Tier A of Sri Lanka’s domestic competition, the Premier Limited Over Tournament. His final figures were 8 for 20.
Matthew Hoggard’s video diary from Sri Lanka
By Will 3 years ago, at the start of December, 3 Comments »
Matthew Hoggard is video-blogging his tour of Sri Lanka. Have a look below, or click here.
You need Flash Player 8 or higher to view video content with the ROO Flash Player.
Click here to download and install it.
Matthew Hoggard, England all-rounder, animal lover and technical wizard gives
us a warts-and-all look behind the scenes as the tour of Sri Lanka gets
underway.
In the first episode, he struggles to cope with jetlag, enjoys the view of a
building site outside his bedroom, turns the tables on a Sky Sports reporter
and gets up close and personal with a Male Body Toucher.
Have Australia done England a favour?
By Will 3 years ago, mid-November, No Comments; be the first!
Have Australia done England a favour, asks Dileep. It’s something I was pondering today when the news came through that Farveez Maharoof will miss the England series. They are receiving a hammering from Australia and yet the first Test against England begins on December 1.
When Sri Lanka lost 2-0 away to India two years ago – Murali was in the squad – the damage wasn’t done by pace bowlers, but by Anil Kumble [in Delhi] and Harbhajan Singh [in Ahmedabad]. If England’s batsmen apply themselves as well as they did in the middle three one-day games, they have every chance. As Australia have shown, neutralising Murali is half the battle won. Deny him wickets, and the Lankan lions looks toothless. If they continue in this vein, Michael Vaughan’s younger pride might just inflict a mauling.
Neutralising Muralitharan is of course the principle aim for England. Half the battle is then won. I was chatting with a colleague briefly today about England and we both admitted to being excited about this series. Peter Moores was in charge over the summer, but the shadow of Duncan Fletcher still loomed over him and England. With his book now out, al the revelations exposed, I think he is now firmly relegated to the past and England can move on. It’s an exciting time and my editor, who was down in “Bell’s Kitchen” the other day, told me he sensed a new and fresher England side. New coaches, fresh faces, new enthusiasm – time to crack on and nail the Lankans while they’re down.
Winning in Sri Lanka did wonders for Fletcher. With the youth of this side, it’s a delicious prospect to think what Moores and co might achieve.
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