This is one team Sanath has thrived on, the poor Kiwis have suffered at the hands of the 'Lankan Mauler' many a time; Andre Adams especially.
I have strong feeling Sanath will bid farewell to Australia today the 28th of FEB '08 with a BANG. This is most likely his last ODI appearance in Australia.
Click to expand...
Thursday, February 28, 2008
[Video] Sanath Jayasuriya 120 Vs New Zealand | World Cup 2003
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
[Video] Chamara Kapugedera 57 | 11th ODI v India | Hobart 2008
Video courtesy Crideos
A face saving knock for the Lions. IF not for Chamara the game would have ended much sooner.
Click to expand...
Sri Lanka's day of shame in Hobart | The Island
The Island (subscription): Statements such as 'great challenge' and 'desperately need to win' have been very much part of Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene's vocabulary during the Commonwealth Bank Series.
But Sri Lanka failed to put the words into action once again, and crashed out of the tri-nation series in the most humiliating fashion, losing their penultimate game of the first round to India here in Hobart by seven wickets with 106 balls to spare on Tuesday.
This performance has to be the worst effort by a Sri Lankan team in a tri-nation series in Australia, since their first tour here in 1985. Writes Rex Clementine reporting from Hobart.
This team has won just one game in seven outings and even Sri Lankan teams of the 1980s managed a single win, and more importantly, those days there weren't as many one-sided games as on this occasion.
So fragile was Sri Lanka's middle order that number four five and six lasted less time in the middle, than they would do in the loo.
Of the seven batsmen that Sri Lanka picked yesterday, the skipper lasted just 11 balls, Chamara Silva just four balls and Tillekeratne Dilshan 12 balls and for the millions of rupees that Sri Lanka Cricket pays them, if that's all what they can offer, there'll be millions of others willing to come forward do exactly the same.
Sri Lankan Cricket certainly needs to ask some harsh questions and find out what has made its cricket team the laughing stock among millions of cricket fans.
They desperately needed to win here to stay alive in the competition and after being put in, despite losing Dilruwan Perera (8), early, they excelled in perfect batting conditions with Kumar Sangakkara and Sanath
Jayasuriya adding 57 runs for the second wicket, and they were set for a big one with the total at 72 for one in the 15th over.
But from thereon, they lost four wickets for the addition of just nine runs as India's seamers ripped through the middle order in the space of just 32 balls.
It was an absolute shocking display by the batsmen, who showed no application whatsoever, barring Chamara Kapugedara who made a resolute 57 in 86 balls.
Kapugedara was last man out, having completed his second ODI fifty and if not for his partnerships with tail-enders, Sri Lanka were heading for further humiliation, with even a three figure total looking beyond their reach.
Kapugedara added a crucial 43 run stand for the eighth wicket with Lasith Malinga (12) and another 40 runs for the ninth wicket with Muttiah Muralitharan (13). The tail-enders proved that there were no demons in the wicket with two fine partnerships and had the established batsmen applied themselves, Sri Lanka could have definitely posted a competitive total.
Sangakkara, who had made 192 in the Test match here three months ago, started the Sri Lankan slide when he charged down the wicket to Praveen Kumar and poked his bat and was comfortably caught by wicketkeeper M. S. Dhoni and that triggered an amazing collapse during 30 minutes of mayhem.
Kumar struck twice in successive overs removing Jayawardene and Chamara Silva. He had the Sri Lankan captain well caught by Rohit Sharma at point for three and Silva's dismal tour might have come to an end when he was caught behind without scoring.
Jayasuriya had shown a glimpse of retuning to form with a 44 ball 34 that included two fours and a typical cut for six before he mistimed a hook shot off Irfan Pathan and at 81 for five, the side was in deep trouble.
Ishant Sharma came back for his second spell and picked up Dilshan and Chaminda Vaas in successive overs. While Dilshan was trapped leg before wicket, Vaas' attempted pull was taken cleanly by the mid-wicket fielder and at 93 for seven, the writing was on the wall as they had lost six wickets for the addition of just 21 runs.
Kapugedara then fought back in terrific fashion, but the task he was faced with was too much.
Kumar finished with four for 31 while Sharma had figures of four for 41.
Jayawardene had been calling for his players to raise their game, but he wasn't leading by example. Having contributed with just three runs with the bat, he put down Robin Uthappa before he had opened his account to deny Chaminda Vaas another wicket in the series.
Then Gautam Gambir got a life when he slashed hard at a Ishara Amarasinghe delivery and the ball flew past the captain at first slip.
After a good bowling effort, the Indian batsmen rubbed salt into the wounds of the Sri Lankans, scoring at 5.5 runs an over. Tendulkar had been out of form the whole series and he warmed up for the big final on Sunday with his 89th half-century.
Tendulkar started off in fine fashion by hitting Amarasinghe's last three balls of his first over for fours. He did the same to Muralitharan soon after he was introduced to the attack, hitting successive boundaries off the off-spinner.
But Murali won this battle with Tendulkar as the opener, playing the inside out drive was caught in the deep by Chamara Silva.
Tendulkar made 63 in 54 balls with ten nicely executed fours.
Muralitharan's eight overs, however, went for 54 runs as the batsmen took a few liberties against him. Gautam Gambir continued his good form in the series and was unbeaten on 63, as India won with plenty of overs to spare.
Click to expand...
Monday, February 25, 2008
Lankan bats ready to hit form, says skipper
WITH his side needing to win today against India to remain in contention for the finals of the Commonwealth Bank tri-series, Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene yesterday attempted to put a positive spin on his team's batting problems, suggesting that the top order was "due" to end the slump. Writes Lyall Johnson for The Age."Everyone's due for runs. Our guys haven't clicked as well and they're working really hard,"
"Everyone is trying to get it right in this tournament where the bowlers have dominated a lot of the time. You just have to make sure you settle in, spend some time in the middle and get some confidence."
Should Sri Lanka win, it would move within a match of overtaking India but would need to defeat Australia on Friday at the MCG to do so. A win for the Indians would put them into the final.
And while conceding that his side was underperforming with the bat, Jayawardene also pointed the finger at the Indian batters, saying they had not been contributing a great deal either.
"They've got a good batting line-up but they've struggled as well in the last few games," he said. "The batsmen have struggled in different things but you can't take that for granted.
"They're all good players and I think our guys are due (for runs) pretty soon. It's going to be a good challenge. It has become a semi-final basically for us."
Sri Lanka will enjoy somewhat of a home-ground advantage having played at Bellerive twice this summer — against Australia in a Test and again in a tour match earlier this month against Tasmania. India has not played there on this tour.
"I think we have a good idea of how this wicket is going to fare," Jayawardene said of the usually swing friendly Bellerive. "It all depends on the (weather) conditions. We just need to wait to see how the day turns out."
Meanwhile, Australian coach Tim Nielsen, safe in the knowledge that his side has secured a finals berth, repeated his suggestion that India should concentrate on its own game rather than calling for the Australians to be investigated for their on-field behaviour.
"I said last week, it's interesting how much the opposition teams are talking about what we're doing and at the moment, as far as I can see, we're the only team that's in the finals," Nielsen said yesterday.
"It might be time for them to start looking in their own backyard. There is no doubt both teams are playing the game very hard, no inches (are) asked for and none given and that's how we like to play the game.
"At the moment there are circumstance that are leading to different things being spoken about. Again, the match referees and officials are looking after that but, and I'll say it again, while they're worrying about us it's a good sign, we're the only ones at the moment that are confirmed in the finals."
Click to expand...
[Video] The Inswinging Yorker | Chaminda Vaas
Chaminda Vaas Vs Yuvraj Singh | CB Series 2008
Click to expand...
Sunday, February 24, 2008
[Video] Lasith Malinga Vs Sachin Tendulkar | CB Series 2008
Even the great Sachin couldn't cope with a jaffa like this. A first ball duck for the little master courtesy the SLINGA
Click to expand...
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Sri Lanka paying for poor selections | The Island
"With two more games to go and with Sri Lanka's chances of making it to the best of three finals in the Commonwealth Bank Series beyond their reach, the selectors have plenty of issues to deal with in coming months.
Sri Lanka hardly look the side that took them to the finals of World Cup in the Caribbean last year. There hasn't been much change of faces in the team and they need to find out what has gone wrong with their batting".
Writes Rex Clementine for The Island
The Sri Lankans have played six games so far in the competition and have managed to win just a single game that too a rain shortened one in Canberra.
To begin with, you have to mention the fact that the Sri Lankans haven't brought the right side to Australia. Apart from that, their batting has failed to click and some of the team changes have become mere laughing stock.
Upul Tharanga for example, has an excellent record, but yet, was dropped after just one failure with the bat. After looking at the way Tharanga got out in Sydney, we don't know whether the selectors want to send a clear message to him. But if they wanted to do so, should they have in the first place brought him to Australia? Now that they have brought him, why not send that clear message, whatever it is, after the end of the series?
Then what they did following his axing is even amusing. They opened with a proven middle-order batsman and once Tillekeratne Dilshan partnered Sanath Jayasuriya, the middle-order looked terribly out of depth. Then after three games, Dilshan was brought back to the middle-order, due to his own failure as an opener and as the middle-order was struggling.
Now then, what was Dilruwan Perera doing here? If they had an issue with the opener's slot, their immediate option should have been to go back to Perera. If he's good enough to come to Australia, surely, he's good enough to play too. Sinhala literature gives you a perfect simile to understand some of the decisions taken by the SL selectors. There lived a person many years ago who had an ailing son. The ailment apparently had to do with his foot, but the father went and applied medicine on his son’s spine, only to see that there is no use in that medicine.
Now that Perera too has failed to make a big score, what will the selectors do next? Will they open with poor Shrian Samararatne, the team Manager!
With all respect to Perera, we need to state that in domestic cricket he hasn't done anything significant to deserve selection into the national team. Perera has not scored a hundred in domestic one-dayers and has only three fifties to his name despite playing 70 odd games.
Who instead of Perera is also an interesting question? Jehan Mubarak is only 27 and is an option, but the issue is, he hasn't done enough despite having ample opportunities. But at least the gamble of brining him would have been worth taking as he also provides you a good fielding option as Sri Lanka's fielding has looked awful in this series.
This is where you badly miss players like Marvan Atpattu and Russel Arnold. Atapattu could have been an option for the struggling openers and then the ‘cool’ Arnold over the years had played such a vital role in the middle-order.
The team certainly has brought one fast bowler more and a batsman less on this tour. The squad has just seven specialist batsmen and with Tharanga out of the equation, the problems are aplenty.
Chanaka Welagedara indeed had a promising debut against England at home in December, but in this series he has been just a passenger. We are told that he's struggling with his follow-through and has been even dropped from the forthcoming West Indies series. But didn't the selectors know that he had problems with his follow-through before the Australian tour? He had that problem during the domestic competition too and some way or the other the selectors have failed to detect that there was a problem. This is exactly
what happens when the selectors don't attend to domestic matches and for Sri Lanka's appalling performance in Australia, the selectors are largely responsible.
The Sri Lankans are paying the price for brining the wrong team for the wrong series. Sadly this seems a trend that has been persisted with. This is exactly what the selectors did for the Twenty-20 Championship in South Africa and they had to pay a heavy price; well, the team not the selectors.
It has been also proved yet again how much this team depends on Sanath Jayasuriya. If the left-hander scores, they invariably win and if he doesn't, things fall apart. In Australia this summer, Jayasuriya has managed just 49 runs in five outings, including two ducks. His scores are 7, 27, 12, 0, 0 in this series and unless he gets a start, you sense that Sri Lanka will push the ‘panic button.’
It was all the more evident in Adelaide. Jayasuriya departed early and Kumar Sangakara and Mahela Jayawardene had to really ensure that they stayed on for long because they absolutely knew the problems their middle-order was facing. The failure of the middle-order must also be putting an additional pressure on Jayasuriya.
Chamara Silva is another player who has been extremely disappointing. He certainly looks a pale shadow of the player we saw last year. Silva has accumulated only 44 runs in four innings. More than the runs, he looks terribly out of depth and it'll be a cruel blow for the Sri Lankans if he's to fade away again at the age of 28.
The Sri Lankans have nothing to lose in this series and the scenario they are facing in this tour is something similar to that of 2002-03 tour of Australia. On that occasion, they were repeatedly beaten by England and Australia before losing a warm-up game in humiliating fashion to Australia 'A'. From thereon, they suddenly clicked and the fortunes of the team suddenly changed with Jayasuriya leading the campaign.
A repeat of that against the Indians in Hobart on Tuesday is quite possible and if Australia beat India today, the Sri Lankans are still in with a chance.
But as for selectors, there shouldn't be any excuse. They need to be held accountable for some ordinary decisions they have made. Click to expand...
[Video] A tribute to the Lions fans | MCG | CB Series 2008
Played at Melbourne Cricket Ground on 22 February 2008 - day/night (50-over match)
Download here
Baila remix
Click to expand...
Muralitharan sets caught and bowled record
Sify sports: Spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan has set a record for most 'caught and bowled' dismissals (30), eclipsing New Zealand's Chris Harris' tally of 29 during their Commonwealth Bank tri-series league match against Australia at MCG here.
Muralitharan got past Harris' record when he caught and bowled Michael Clarke after the batsmen had scored half-century.
Click here to see Murali break the record for the most number of caught and bowled dismissals in Test Cricket
Click to expand...
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Re: Sri Lanka drop veteran Jayasuriya
The BBC article posted here as it turns out is completely false. The squad announced to tour West Indies was the Test squad. Sanath as we all know has announced his retirement from Test Cricket the ODI squad is yet to be announced.
Click to expand...
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Sri Lanka drop veteran Jayasuriya
BBC: Sri Lanka have dropped veteran batsman Sanath Jayasuriya from their squad to tour the Caribbean next month, raising doubts about his international career.
The 38-year-old quit Tests in December during the series against England.
And he has managed a total of just 46 runs in four games of the triangular one-day series in Australia.
Another opener, Upul Tharanga, has also been left out, while left-arm seamer Thilina Thushara and slow left-armer Rangana Herath are handed recalls.
Thushara's only previous appearance was a Test against the West Indies in Kingston in 2003, while Herath last featured in a Test against Bangladesh in Colombo two-and-a-half years ago.
Sri Lanka will play two Tests and three one-day internationals, with the first Test in Guyana starting on 22 March.
Click to expand...
Sunday, February 17, 2008
[Video] Sreesanth Vs Sanath Jayasuriya
In the 52 balls he [Sreesanth] has bowled to Jayasuriya in all ODIs, he has been spanked for 84 runs, with just one dismissal.Writes S Rajesh for Cricinfo.
It's a match-up Jayasuriya relishes, even if he is out of form; the next time India take the field against Sri Lanka, it might not be a bad idea for Dhoni to hold Sreesanth back till Jayasuriya is out.
Click to expand...
[Video] Tillakaratne Dilshan 62* Vs India | CB Series 2008
Match 5 India Vs Sri Lanka, CB Series 2008. TM Dilshan promoted to open batting.
Click to expand...
[Video] A tribute to the Lions fans | CB Series 2008
Download high quality DIVX video here
The Lions fans at the Manukka Oval and WACA.
Click to expand...
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Channel 9 commentary should be restricted to Australian territories
I'm absolutely appalled and I have no doubt that I'm NOT alone in this. The role of a sports commentator should consist of unbiased narration of our great game and an expert analysis of the ongoing game. Channel 9's commentary team consists of former Australian cricketers and a wannabe British sportsman (Mark Nicholas). For those who don't know Mark Nicholas has never played International cricket, I agree one does not need to be a former player to be a good commentator but Mark must remain loyal to his employers and as such barely resembles anything close to the word 'unbiased'.
For a brief moment Micheal Slater managed to turn even me off cricket when he let his emotions get in the way as Sri Lanka appealed for a caught behind when Gilly was in the 90's. "Stop appealing!" was what 'slats' and 'heals' blurted even prior to requesting for a 'snikco' replay. The commentators had their heads so deep up Gilly's ass that they didn't realise Sri Lanka were knocking off the rest of the batting order.
If you watched Match 6 on Star sports you'll have a very diverse view of the game. The Andrew Symond's catch was in no means 'Clean' and The Micheal Hussey stumping was turned down by the 3rd umpire after ONLY receiving 2 inconclusive videos from Channel 9's producers. The Star sports commentators called it as they saw it and 9's crew..well were partying and celebrating an Aussie win.
If winning means this much to these Australians they should follow the Americans as they do with NFL and NBA and play Cricket amongst themselves..call it the 'World Series' and only broadcast these games amongst themselves.
Click to expand...
Thursday, February 14, 2008
[Video] India v Sri Lanka | Match 5 | CB Series '08
Click here for alternate Video link
India v Sri Lanka, CB Series, 5th ODI, Canberra
February 12, 2008
Sri Lanka 2 for 154 (Dilshan 62*) beat India 5 for 195 (Rohit 70*) by eight wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Match package
Bulletin - Dilshan guides Sri Lanka home
S Rajesh - The lion roars, finally
Quotes - Jayawardene hopes to build on opening momentum
Nagraj Gollapudi - Two shades of a plan
Roving Reporter - In the Army now
Plays of the day - Learn the art of improvisation from the master
Audio - Ravi Shastri: Jayasuriya made it one-sided
Gallery
Lanka look to punt The Punter
In American Football a Punt is A kick in which the ball is dropped from the hands and kicked before it touches the ground. From the look of things India and Sri Lanka prepare to kick ponting out of the game on his way down..
Sri Lanka's captain Mahela Jayawardene has laid down a marker for Friday's match in Perth after vowing to target Australian frailties - and Ricky Ponting in particular - as they bid to top the table. A win for Sri Lanka would see them top of the standings, relegating the world champions Australia to bottom. - Cricinfo
This summer both Sri Lanka and India contributed greatly to Ponting's demise as the world's no.1 ranked batsman. Murali thoroughly exposed him during the 2 match test series in Nov/Dec 2007 and now the Indian's have ensured his batting continues to slump. The Indians also managed to change public opinion of Ponting's captaincy and his captaincy tactics. For some he can no longer be considered Australia's finest captain his brash and uncouth mannerisms were severely exposed to all in recent times.
Click to expand...
[Video] "He's got popeye forearms and he's had his spinach"
Jayasuriya Vs Sreesanth | CB Series Match 5
Click to expand...
Monday, February 11, 2008
[Video] Sanath Jayasuriya | This is Cricket
It is not too difficult to see why, if Sanath Jayasuriya had not been a cricketer, he would have been an accomplished fencer, sallying forth towards his opponent, as he does when he dances down the wicket, with nimbleness of foot and alertness of eye. You can visualise the epee twirling dexterously in his quick hands and sense the swordsman`s acceptance of having his life hang by a string. The qualities of skill and daring form a rare combination, perhaps suited more to a gambler than a top order batsman and yet, to see Jayasuriya bat is to see a finely crafted gambler at work, sensing an opportunity and thriving on it.
Sanath Jayasuriya: radically different - 9th May 1996.
"I have not seen (Don) Bradman bat. But I have seen Jayasuriya. He played unbelievable shots, some of those out of the book too. I have not seen anybody else bat like him before" said Sachin Tendulkar.
"He does not need any luck because he has got shots all around the wicket," Tendulkar said of the left-handed Lankan phenomenon who created a world Test record partnership worth 576 with Roshan Mahanama (225) in the first of the two-Test series against India in which his contribution was 340.
Click to expand...