‘You have an attractive side, they are playing well’ -fans

Elmo Rodrigopulle in West Indies

‘You can win de cup mann. You have an attractive side, and dey are playing well under de captain Mahela Jayawardena’. This is what we hear when we walk on the roads, the malls, the banks and some of the houses, once they recognise us as Sri Lankans.

They see us sporting the media card and they ask: ‘From which country mann?’

We say Sri Lanka. And then they begin to open up the way they pronounce their English and they sing the praises of the team and the attractive cricket they play.

‘You play de style of the West Indian game.

You know that the ball is meant to be hit. And de batsmen hit it like great West Indian batsmen of the past.’

‘You hit de ball sensibly, unlike the Windies batsmen of today, who hit de ball, but do not do it sensibly. Dey don’t hit the ball to de fence or over it. They hit it to the hands of the fielder mann,’ said cricket fans here.

The West Indians go crazy when Sanath Jayasuriya gets his big hitting act going. Jayasuriya punished the West Indies bowlers in Sri Lanka’s convincing win in Guyana.

The consensus here is that the West Indians love to watch the left hander playing his daring shots.

Some even compare him with great West Indian openers of the past such as Roy Fredricks, Cammie Smith and Gordon Greenidge, who were sights to behold when they were making runs.

Cricket fans are also amazed with the action of paceman Lasith Malinga. They haven’t seen an unique action like Malinga’s. They reckon he is something like their former paceman Fidel Edwards, but opine that Malinga is more squarearmish.

They also reckon that with Malinga setting a world record, where he had four wickets in four balls against the South Africans, bowlers of his style will emerge in the Caribbean before long.