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| Friday, 20 February 2004 |
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Focus on Jayasuriya at Dambulla Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from Dambulla DAMBULLA, Thursday - Sanath Jayasuriya will be the cynosure of all eyes as he walks onto the field at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium here tomorrow where he will become the most capped cricketer for Sri Lanka in one-day internationals. Not many cricketers last the length to appear in more than 300 one-day internationals considering the velocity at which these games are played today. But Jayasuriya is an exception. At 34 he has not only kept himself in peak physical condition but also continues to play an integral part of his team's success as an explosive left-handed opener and sometimes a destructive left-arm spinner. In the history of one-day internationals only seven players have played in more than 300 matches. Jayasuriya and former team mate Aravinda de Silva are just two of them. Players from the subcontinent dominate the short list with India and Pakistan also providing with two players apiece leaving former Australian captain Steve Waugh as the odd man out. Jayasuriya is currently on par with De Silva on 308 one-day appearances and he is also in line to replace the great man's name in the record books as the highest run-getter for his country in the overs-limit game. Jayasuriya's present run tally stands at 9172 runs, 112 runs shy of De Silva's record total of 9284. He has five one-day internationals of the current series to go past that total. "It is a great honour for me to become the highest capped one-day player for my country," said Jayasuriya yesterday. "I hope to represent my country for as long as I can. Personally I am very happy." "Although it is a personal achievement the priority is to perform well against Australia and win. Otherwise, it won't mean a thing,' he said. Jayasuriya said that passing De Silva's landmark for the most runs and becoming his country's leading run-getter will 'be the biggest achievement of my career'. "Getting the record off Aravinda is itself a great achievement. You cannot compare me to Aravinda. He is the greatest cricketer produced by Sri Lanka and I have a lot of respect for him," said Jayasuriya. Jayasuriya said that he would use these two milestones to motivate himself for the series. "It is not going to be easy with the Australians. It's more or less a mental game and we will have to be focussed in our cricket," he said. 'We are good at learning from defeat' Australian captain Ricky Ponting said that his team would use the positives arising out of their one-day victory over India in the one-day triangular last year to perform well in Sri Lanka. "The win in India was probably the second best one-day win I've been involved in last year behind the World Cup. It was a really good effort for us to go out there and play the way we did," said Ponting. "We lost the first game. Our game from then onwards improved. We played well in their conditions. A lot of the guys took a lot of confidence from that. We have come here pretty confident that we can play well here again," he said. "We had a fair idea on what sort of conditions we are going to come up against in Sri Lanka before we left. The last time we were here for the ICC trophy, we encountered pretty different conditions for one-day cricket. Unfortunately we didn't win that game. But we learnt a lot from that which is what this side is really good at. Hopefully, we can learn from it this time," Ponting said. He said the Australians' preparations for the series was good and that they are looking forward to the tomorrow's contest. Ponting admitted that Michael Bevan had recovered from a rib injury and would play leaving the spin options to be decided amongst Andrew Symonds, Michael Clarke and Simon Katich. One change Sri Lanka are likely to make just one change from the team that beat England so comprehensively by ten wickets here in November last year. Off-spinner Kumar Dharmasena is expected to replace fast bowler Dinusha Fernando who has not been named in the squad of 15 for the first two matches. Head to head Sri Lanka and Australia have played each other on 50 occasions. Australia has won 33 and Sri Lanka 15 with two matches ending in no-results. Nine of those victories for Sri Lanka have been achieved under home conditions the last being in the ICC Champions trophy mini-World Cup match in 2002. Australia has beaten Sri Lanka only thrice in 14 match with two ending in no-results. The teams: SRI LANKA (from): Marvan Atapattu (captain), Sanath Jayasuriya, Romesh Kaluwitharana, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Chaminda Vaas, Muttiah Muralitharan, Upul Chandana, Kumar Dharmasena, Nuwan Kulasekara, Nuwan Zoysa, Kaushal Lokuarachchi, Russel Arnold, Saman Jayantha. AUSTRALIA (from): Ricky Ponting (captain), Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Damien Martyn, Andrew Symonds, Michael Clarke, Simon Katich, Ian Harvey, Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee, Brad Hogg. UMPIRES: Asoka de Silva (Sri Lanka) and Bill Bowden (New Zealand), TV umpire: Peter Manuel (Sri Lanka), Match Referee: Mike Procter (South Africa). HIGHEST RUN GETTERS IN ODIs (qualif. 9,000 runs) MOST ODI APPEARANCES (qualif. 300 and over) Player Country ODIs Wasim Akram (Pakistan) 356 |
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