Jayasuriya fails, Lankans drown

It has now come to pass and become the rule rather than the exception that if Sanath Jayasuriya fails to fire, then the Lankan batting crumbles and the game is good as over, with the Lankans being on the losing side.

This was never better exemplified than in the World Cup Twenty20 in South Africa. In the first two games he flowered and in the next three games he failed and the batting withered and with it, the Lankan hopes of figuring in the final and wining it faded.

Jayasuriya when he gets his strokemaking acts on the rails; he is devastating and can strike down the opponents like a tsunami. But when he fails, the tsunami does a vice versa.

When Jayasuriya began to fail and with his opening partner Upul Tharanga in poor form, the selectors on tour could have broken with tradition and tossed in the hard hitting Farveez Maharoof to face the new ball.

But the tour selectors did not have the courage to be different continuing with Jayasuriya and Tharanga and what subsequently happened was that the Lankans were dumped from the tournament.

A bit of positive thinking could have made the difference.

Like present day pundits, we would not like to be wise after the event. But would like to tell the selectors, when placed in a similar predicament to have the courage to be different, because it is those who dare win.

But we wouldn't want to take the tour selectors and the squad to task, considering that the World Cup Twenty20, was just a mockery on the game and that it was not going to be beneficial to the players cricket wise, but a money making exercise by the International Cricket Council.

The ICC has sniffed blood in money that they are making and it would not be long before they continue to tinker with this wonderful game and even making it a laughing stock by introducing more gimmicks that would further make a mockery of cricket.

Those who planted the seeds of this wonderful game and then called it Test cricket and saw it played in all its splendour and glory must be turning in their graves at the insults that are being heaped on the game by the greed for money by the ICC shieks in Dubai.

Having been to the former apartheid country South Africa a few times, we would like to say that this was the best place for this kind of game, because the hosts have wonderful venues to conduct this circus.

On one of those visits to South Africa, Lionel the cheer leader who was tagged the 'legend' Premasara Epasinghe, his son Bhagaya and the writer had the terrifying experience of seeing our colleague Lionel Ranasinghe, who was mugged and was lying in bed with many of his bones broken. That experience still haunts me.

Ranasinghe was on his way to purchase his bus ticket when he suffered this life threatening attack. That Ranasinghe survived was the work of God.

Wonderful venues

The Wanderers in Johannesburg, Kingsmead in Durban and Newlands in Cape Town are excellent venues for cricket. They are picturesque and the Newlands stands out with the tourist attracting Table Mountain as its backdrop.

But what was unacceptable was that the three venues were different in size. Some had long boundaries and some others shorter ones.

One wonders what the big deal is in playing the matches in venues that are not standard. Some teams revelled on the shorter boundaries, while others did not have that advantage.

Surely the ICC could have told the hosts.

David Lloyd

David Lloyd the former England player, now turned TV commentator played a game of his own. It went like this. When the Zimbabweans upset the Australians, Lloyd went into raptures and was near to losing his vocal chords the deafening manner in which he was singing the praises of the Zimbabwean victory.

Those listening said that this was because of the frustration of not being able to see and comment when his countrymen beat the Kangaroos.

One can hardly remember when the Englishmen last beat the Aussies.

In the Ashes series the Englishmen were stuffed with a 5-nil bashing.

And Lloyd went delirious with joy when the Pakistanis turned tables on the Aussies and then again let himself loose when the Indians won over the Aussies.

As a responsible commentator he would be well advised not to let his emotions run riot, but take a lesson from Ian Chappel and the three superb Indian commentators Harsha Bhogale, Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar.

This cricketing rumble sadly missed the steadying influence of former South African, Sussex and England Captain Tony Greig.

Everytime Greig gets behind the mike, it is a learning experience to hear him describing the action out in the middle.

One hopes Greig would be here for the one-day bash between Sri Lanka and England due to take off on the beautiful playing fields of Sri Lanka.