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by Kasturiarachchi Warnakulasuriya

Sheer mistakes done by the umpiring fraternity have been the talk of the town during the past few years. As a result of that, many a batsman had been frustrated because wrong decision will utterly end up in lowering one's averages. Likewise wrong adjudication as to who should be the 'man of the match', 'man of the series', the most valuable player will definitely lead to lamentable situations, as cricket is a funny game, where the fate of cricketer always seems to be "hanging in the balance."

The performance in the thrilling nine-run victory by Sri Lanka over Pakistan, the other day was one such, another instance. The adjudicators named Marvan Atapattu as the man of the match. But there was another greater contributory, performance rather than Marvan's, which ought to be highly appreciated and commended. That was Upul Chandana's, one day career best 64 and his two dismissals. It was he who helped the team to add 70 runs in the last 10 overs. At a time when bowler tail enders utterly fail, his 64 should have been considered as a marathon performance which had paved way for the team's sensational victory, though it was not achieved as a result of a follow up.

As a bowler and a fielder too, his performance that day, was excellent. Chandana was responsible to dismiss opener Imran Nazir with a fine piece of a direct hit from the point area to end a 72 run partnership, for the second wicket with Yousuf Youhana. The leggie was also instrumental in dislodging Pakistan's reliable key batsman Inzamam, again breaking a 85 run stand, going on with the top scorer of the day, Younis Khan. It was a difficult return catch grabbed by him. This shows that the hero of the day was Upul Chandana to have the breakthrough for Sri Lanka, to end the match in a sensational, nail biting situation. What else? A fine all rounders' performance shown at a glance, in all three departments of the game batting, bowling and fielding, had been over looked, through sheer negligence! This is not the first instance of unreasonable adjudications. Once, Mahela Jayawardena had been the victim of such an unfortunate instance.

Let this be an eye opener for bad decisions in adjudication which prevails now, alongside bad decisions in umpiring, to uproot the lamentations and frustrations which carry a lot of impact on the fate of cricketers who are toiling hard to maintain their positions. 

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