England suffer double blow

England sports has suffered a double blow in soccer and cricket. Days after their FIFA World Cup World Cup debacle which forced skipper David Beckham to resign from captaincy, their cricket team suffered a 0-5 humiliation at the hands of Sri Lanka before home supporters.

One of our colleagues jokingly asked whether Beckham stepped down due to the thrashing their cricket team got, especially from Sanath Jayasuriya. True that there is no connection between Beckham's resignation and the Sri Lanka cricket team's 5-0 whitewash in the one day international series against England, but one thing is certain, English sport is undergoing one of its worst periods ever.

We say cricket is a game filled with glorious uncertainties, but one has to add soccer too under that, considering the final round matches of the 2006 FIFA World cup tournament in Germany. Who thought that the defending champions Brazil, which had the luxury of superstars of the calibre of Ronaldo and Ronaldino, could not even find a place in the last four?

Argentina, regarded as one of the fancied teams was beaten by the hosts Germany 4-2 on penalties in the 'quarters'. France shattered

Brazil dreams as the pre-tournament favourites went down 0-1, while Portugal humbled England 3-1 in a penalty shootout.

Then came the first semi final shock in Berlin in the early hours of yesterday when Germany's dreams of winning the World Cup were shattered. Coming in to the game as the underdogs, Italy scored twice within the last 120 seconds of the second half of extra time to book a place in Sunday's final.

Italy's 2-0 victory after a nil-all extra time break, left the host nation in a state of shock and despair. The match went at a rapid pace. The man who made the difference at the end at Dortmund's Westfalenstadion was Italian defender Fabio Grosso who received a well-measured pass in the area from midfielder Andrea Pirlo and curled a superb shot past the outstretched fingers of German goal keeper Jens Lehmann.

There was pin drop silence as over 65,000 home spectators could not believe that their team was eliminated. Then Italy made sure that their win was even more creditable when substitute striker Alessandro Del Piero sealed the match with the last kick of the game after a pass from Alberto Gilardino.

Going back to cricket, Sri Lanka accomplished their final task in the 2006 summer tour of England with another record breaking performance. England would have thought that the target of 322 set by them in the final one day international at Leeds would be good enough to prevent Sri Lanka from registering a 5-0 clean sweep.

But then came that 'rebirth' of Sanath Jayasuriya, who showed his typical 1996 World cup form once again. It was a memorable treat to watch with Jayasuriya in full cry, cutting, hooking and pulling the English bowlers to all corners of Headingly grounds.

His turbo-powered innings of 152 off just 99 balls against England, his second century in the series, was a treat to watch. His willow showed no mercy to England's bowlers.

Jayasuriya's presence was a tower of strength and a big inspiration to his opening partner Upul Tharanga who too made a clever century. The duo shared a record 286-run opening partnership which speaks volumes for the control the duo had.

It looked like a 'sports meet' as England fielders were doing their 100m and 200m sprints to save boundaries. Then when Jayasuriya and Tharanga found aerial routes, the England fielders looked mere spectators, without knowing what medicine to give to cure the 'Jayasuriya virus'.

Many felt that Jayasuriya's thrashing was not purely for England players but also for those who tried to burry him alive. It was they who forced Jayasuriya to resign and orchestrated media campaigns to oust the dashing opener. Now those critics do not utter a word, after being forced to eat their own words.

In the Netherlands, Jayasuriya established two more world records - the most number of fours (24) and the most number of appearances (363) in one day internationals.

During his blistering knock of 157, Jayasuriya became only the third batsman in the world to complete 11,000 runs in ODIs behind Sachin Tendulkar and Saeed Anwer.

Sri Lanka also regained the world record they held for the highest ODI total by scoring 443 for 9 in 50 overs.

It all indicates that Sri Lanka cricket is heading for that 1995/98 golden era. It was encouraging to see the youngsters like Tharanga combining with the experience of batsman Jayasuriya, then Lasith Malinga coming to the rescue when Muttiah Muralitharan was forced to withdraw due to a family commitment.

What matters now is consistency. If we can maintain the same form in the home series against South Africa and India and then in New Zealand later this year, it would be an ideal lead-up for the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean.