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| Saturday, 01 January 2005 |
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History repeats itself It seems that whenever Sri Lanka and New Zealand meet at cricket fate is bound to interfere and throw a spanner in the works to disrupt the series. For those who have been following cricket ties between the two countries for the past twenty or so years, the cancellation of the 2004 series in New Zealand is nothing new. Ever since a car bomb exploded at the Pettah bus stand resulting in a large number of deaths in April 1987, cricket series involving Sri Lanka and New Zealand have been dogged by similar calamities. On that occasion only the first Test of a series of three was completed ending in a draw at the CCC grounds. The remaining Tests and the four one-day internationals were cancelled as New Zealand headed for home. Brendon Kuruppu, the present manager of the Sri Lanka team, then only 25 years old, distinguished himself with an unbeaten double century to become the first Sri Lankan to make a century on Test debut. Having opened the batting and made the slowest ever Test double century, Kuruppu then put on his wicket-keeping gloves to become the first player to stay on the field throughout the whole match on his Test debut. Five years later New Zealand's third Test tour of Sri Lanka came close to being abandoned when a suicide bomb attack left five dead (including the Navy commander Clancy Fernando) outside their hotel room at Galle Face. The New Zealand players were witness to blood spattered bodies and broken limbs - something which they had never experienced in their country. Five of the players unable to stomach what they saw accepted the New Zealand board's offer to return home. The tour was restructured with two Tests instead of the scheduled three. The first Test was drawn at Moratuwa and Sri Lanka won the second played at the SSC by nine wickets. In 2003 nature was at its worst when persistent rains forced all the matches scheduled in Colombo to be moved to Dambulla in the tri-nation Bank Alfallah Cup one-day tournament. New Zealand made the best use of the bowler friendly pitches to win only their second one-day tournament in their history beating Pakistan in the final. Sri Lanka failed to reach a home tournament final for the first time under Marvan Atapattu, the present captain. The latest tragedy of events following the trail of destruction left by tsunami forced Sri Lanka to abandon their tour of New Zealand after the completion of just one of the five one-day internationals. Two Tests were also cancelled. The daily events as it unfolded tragically each day was too much for the national cricketers to bear. Playing cricket was furthest from their minds. They wanted to return home and be a part of the rescue operations taking place as the whole nation geared itself to overcome a calamity which they had never experienced in their history. Bringing the cricketers home was the wisest thing to do although Sri Lanka Cricket dilly-dallied for some time before finally making up their mind. Learning from past mistakes SLC were caught up in a tricky situation when the country's leading cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan once again shot his mouth off to the international media. On this occasion he was quoted by an Australian newspaper saying that 'the present situation in the country was not the right time to play cricket'. Murali's comments came at a time when the tour of New Zealand was far from being called off. No sooner this article was reproduced by a local morning daily; Murali rushed to the SLC headquarters to deny ever making such a statement and told the SLC hierarchy that he had been misquoted. This is not the first time Murali had been left defending himself to comments which he said he had not made to the Australian media. Quite recently he was widely quoted of having accused Australian fast bowlers of chucking, which again he denied as having said. Once bitten twice shy does not seem to be the motto for Murali who keeps on making the same mistakes over and over again. It would be advisable for Murali to keep his mouth shut and alienate himself from the foreign media especially Australia. Has he forgotten so quickly that it was the media from Down Under who tarnished his image internationally amid the chucking controversy and continue to harass him no end even today? |
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