Murali and Sangakkara stole the limelight in 2007

Chris Dhambarage

Sri Lanka were able to make giant strides on the cricketing field with their International Cricket Council World Cup campaign in the Caribbean considered as the greatest moment for the year 2007.

However that performance was somewhat overshadowed by two brilliant individual contributions from Muttiah Muralitharan and vice captain Kumar Sangakkara. The former emerged as the World’s leading Test wicket taker while the latter raced to the top of the list in the ICC Rankings for batsmen during the home series against England.

In fact Sri Lanka’s one nil series victory against England also helped them to climb into the third place of the ICC Rankings behind the World champions Australia and South Africa. Left hander Sangakkara enjoyed a fantastic season both at home and away as he became the second highest run getter for his country in 2007 behind skipper Mahela Jayawardena.

Sangakkara’s biggest achievement was that he became the first ever player to make scores of over 150 runs in four successive Test matches including two unbeaten double hundreds against Bangladesh at home which was followed by a trail blazing knock of 192 runs against Australia in the second Test match at Hobart.

Sangakkara also joined a select band of players and became the ninth players and the second Sri Lankan batsman after Marvan Atapattu to score a century against all Test playing nations. In seven Test matches he collected a total of 968 runs at a splendid average of 138.28.

He also became the fourth Sri Lankan batsmen to complete six thousand runs in Test cricket during the third and final test match against England at the Galle International Stadium.

Apart from Sangakkara’s blazing run of success with the bat the champion off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan eventually shattered retired Australian spinner Shane Warne’s World record for the most number of Test wickets during the first Test match against England at the Asgiriya Stadium.

Muralitharan stood above the rest as he picked up 49 wickets from the eight Test matches at an excellent average of 22.30. He claimed five wickets or more on five occasions and had a matchbag of n wickets on one occasion.

In fact the Asgiriya Test match turned out to be an emotional one for Sanath Jayasuriya and Chaminda Vaas. The former figured in his final Test match after having announced his retirement while the latter reached a unique landmark when he represented the country in his 100th Test match.
 

Veteran Jayasuriya left the scene in style while stroking a superb knock of 78 runs in the second innings including hitting all six deliveries from James Anderson over for boundaries.

This splendid performance also put him in the record books along with the West Indies’ Chris Gayle as the only batsmen ever to have hit all deliveries of a regulation six ball over for boundaries.

Jayasuriya who made his Test debut against New Zealand in February 1991 played 188 innings in 110 Test matches at an average of 40.08. He was a member of the World Cup winning team in 1996 and is the only player in the world to have scored more than 12,000 runs and capture 300 wickets in the limited over game.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka’s veteran fast bowler Chaminda Vaas completed a unique milestone when he represented the country in his 100th Test match during the opening Test match against the England team at the Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy.

The left arm paceman who made his Test debut at this same venue against Pakistan in 1994 became only the third Sri Lankan player to perform this feat after teammates Muttiah Muralitharn and Sanath Jayasuriya.

Vaas had earlier scored his maiden Test hundred during the home series against Bangladesh which Sri Lanka won by a convincing margin of three nil. The feature of Sri Lanka’s performance during this series was that they took all three Test matches by more than innings which clearly proved their dominance.

Sri Lanka however continued their poor record in Australia where they lost both Test matches in Brisbane and Hobart respectively. Even then their spirited effort in the second Test match earned them a great amount of admiration where they could have performed the impossibility if not for a controversial umpiring decision on prolific run getter Kumar Sangakkara.

Mahela Jayawardena’s team bounced back in style by completely outplaying England in the three Test home series.

Their one nil series victory of course did not reflect their total dominance because the Lankans were very much on top in the two games that ended in a draw at the SSC ground and at the reconstructed Galle International Stadium.

Incidentally the Galle Test turned out to be a historic and an emotional one as Test cricket returned to the Southern Province for the first time since the tsunami disaster struck three years ago.

This match also turned out to be a memorable one for skipper Mahela Jayawardena who rewrote history books of Sri Lankan Test cricket when he emerged as the highest centurion during his unbeaten knock of 149 runs.

The 30 year old elegant right hander playing in his 93rd Test match completed his 21st hundred and overtook Aravinda de Silva’s record of 20 centuries which he collected from the same number of matches.

Jayawardena who earlier became the first Sri Lankan batsman to reach seven thousand runs in Test cricket established another record when he scored his fifth hundred for the year 2007.

South African all rounder Jacques Kallis is the only other batsman who had scored five centuries for this calendar year. Jayawardena has so far scored six centuries against England and this was the fourth occasion he had crossed the three figure mark at the Galle International Stadium.

In the shorter version of the game Sri Lanka’s performances at the ICC World Cup was easily their best effort for the year 2007. They emerged runners up to Australia on the Duckworth and Lewis scoring method after the final was disrupted by ran and bad light in Bridgetown.

Even then Sri Lanka’s run up to the final was quite outstanding as they swept aside all opponents losing only once to South Africa and Australia respectively. In fact the game against South Africa was the most thrilling encounter of the whole tournament with the Lankans going down by a solitary run despite a heroic effort from Lasith Malinga.

The bowling efforts of paceman Lasith Malinga turned out to be a revolution as he snapped up four wickets in four successive deliveries to establish a new record in limited overs cricket.

Earlier Sri Lanka drew a three match one day international series one all in New Zealand with one game ending in a no result.

However they suffered a 2-1 defeat at the hands of India in a four match one day international series with one match ending in a no result. Sri Lanka experienced a similar setback in Abu Dhabi as they went down to Pakistan by the same margin in a three match series which saw cricket returning back to the Middle East after few years.

Sri Lanka made a three nil clean sweep in the home one day series against Bangladesh but went down to England 3-2 in a five match one day international series. This was the first time the Lankans had gone down to England on home soil in a one day series.

Despite these setbacks skipper Mahela Jayawardena had the satisfaction of finishing the year with a winning percentage of 59.25 having won 16 of the 29 one dayers with 11 defeats and two no results. The year 2007 also saw the retirement of former captain Marvan Atapattu, middle order batsman Russel Arnold and all rounder Upul Chandana.