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| Tuesday, 3 August 2004 |
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Lanka deserved victory Comment by Elmo Rodrigopulle Playing the better cricket, Sri Lanka beat India to win for the third time the Asia Cup under lights at the R. Premadasa Stadium on Sunday to the delight of a packed house. What was encouraging in this victory was that the Lankans led cleverly by Marvan Atapattu played consistently throughout, other than for the one defeat to India. They avenged that defeat by outplaying the Indians in the final by 25 runs. What the Lankans now got to do is to continue in this vein, beat the South Africans in the Tests as well as the one-dayers and be in fine fettle to grab the ICC Mini World Cup in England next month. Before the game, the consensus was that the team winning the toss would be the victors. And that is how it turned out to be. When Michael Slater, donning a doctor's coat did the pitch reading, he said that it was a 100 over match wicket. But he was proved wrong, because the wicket tended to get slower and slower as the game progressed making batting a nightmare. So it proves that noone, can exactly read how a wicket would play, especially when it comes to night cricket. We have a lot of pseudo wicket experts who think they know all. How a wicket would play can only be told once the game is in progress. When Sri Lanka lost the wicket of Sanath Jayasuriya who had made two centuries to a questionable LBW decision, and when Gunewardena went a little later, things did not look good. But exemplary batting by captain Marvan Atapattu and Kumar Sangakkara who put on a century partnership, steered the batting ship and took them to 228 which was going to be a formidable target to chase, considering that the wicket was beginning to deteriorate. Encouraged by the deafening cheers of the home crowd, Chaminda Vaas as he usually does, opened the victory gates for the Lankans when he had Sehwag plumb in front. Then Mahela Jayawardena took a fantastic catch in the slips to send back skipper Ganguly off the hard working Nuwan Zoysa and from that moment, the Lankans took the Indian batting by the scruff of its neck and throttled it to lure it to death 25 runs short. Sanath Jayasuriya, Lanka's wonderful performer over the years, was chosen the Player of the series and was at the wheel of a Maruti Esteem vehicle. He rubbished those who wrote him off and his critics must not only eat their words, but must also eat the paper that they wrote the rubbish on. Good for coach John Dyson that the Lankans carried away the Indian Oil Asia Cup. His head was on the block. We hope that the powers that be would give Dyson the confidence and continuity he deserves to take the team to the future and with greater success. Unacceptable Assaulting a referee is unacceptable in a decent society. Maybe it is the done thing in the country from where the assailant emerged. We are referring to the assault of the referee during the CR and FC - Havelocks rugby match played on Sunday at Havelock Park. However much the referee would have been at fault, assaulting him is the work of a coward. This kind of behaviour has no place in sport. The sooner the alleged player is kicked, not to touch but into the wilderness the better it would be for the player, the game and all that it stands for. In recent times rugby football which is a rowdies' game played by gentlemen, has seen a lot of indiscipline creeping in with players indulging in fisticuffs, teams walking off and now comes the ugly assault of a referee. There was also the incident where respectable members of a club were heard shouting obscene words at opposing players. Very sad. When disgusting incidents of this nature take place one cannot forget the wonderful work done by Kishin Butani when he was in charge of CH rugby. To him winning or losing was not what mattered, but how one played the game. Butani used to hammer into his players that what mattered most was Discipline. Basing his strategy on discipline, Butani churned out champions for many years at the CH. But sadly Butani is now a forgotten man. How ungrateful. It is time that the SLRFU stepped in and stopped this rot, that is threatening to besmirch the game. |
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