Brave Lankans bring English cricket to its knees

Elmo Rodrigopulle

CRICKET: In an article on Saturday, which was the second day of the final Test between Sri Lanka and England, headlined-The Daily News' was spot on - in the concluding paragraphs I said: 'When the final ball is bowled, I hope that the Lankans would have beaten the overated Englishmen and forced their biased media to headline their stories - Brave Lankans bring English cricket to its knees.

I further said that Jayawardena and his troops have it in them to do just that. And that is exactly what the Lankans did. Trailing 0-1, any other team would have found it difficult to come back, considering that they were playing on wickets and conditions not familiar to them.

But not the Lankans. Admirably led by Mahela Jayawardena, and with superb team effort, not only did they bury English cricket in the dust at Trent Bridge, but proved what they can do the Lankans can do better. Spin ace Muttiah Muralitharan who has always been a newsmaker, was once again in his now familiar act, that of not only running through opposing batting lineups, but also making a mockery of their batting.

It was sad to watch the much vaunted England batsmen surrender and collapse in the timid and sad manner they did. Muralitheran made the batting look silly at times, foxing them with his doosra that had their batting greats looking like kids lost in the woods.

It was a mesmerising spell by the great off spinner. He would have performed a similar act in the Second Test had the Lankan batsmen given him a few more runs to play with. But that the Lankans did the Englishmen in their own den, is great and they could savour this victory, which was cleanly won for a long time to come.

When Sanath Jayasuriya was tossed in for this Test there were a few murmurs. Although he failed with the bat, unfortunately he was undone by the umpire in the second innings, he showed his importance by making his presence felt with the ball.

The wickets of Flintoff and Plunkett which he captured in the first innings and the final wicket of Monty Panesar to signal Sri Lanka's win would have been sweet music to the ears of this one-time much feared master craftsman.

But what happened to Jayasuriya on his arrival at Heathrow Airport was a sad tale. More about that in my 'Comment' column on Tuesday.

It would not be good to single out names in this epic victory but I would be failing in my duty if I don't mention the names of captain Jayawardena, Kumar Sangakkara, Upul Tharanga, Dilshan, Chaminda Vaas and Chamara Kapugedera. Lanka's victory is all the more great considering that it was achieved against the Ashes winning England team, and a team that was highly overrated and thought to be invincible.

England will no doubt come back gritting their teeth to try and devour the Lankans in the five one-day internationals beginning with the opener at Lord's on June 17.

But if the Lankans perform to capacity and the way we know they can, then they can maintain superiority and bag the Englishmen.

If the Lankans perform the one-day requirements to perfection, then they can once again hold their heads high and proudly stand on the victory podium at the end.