Silly Point
It’s hard to believe you are gone at such a tender age. But then life is cruel and death is certain, untimely at times it is the fate of all man. Born in the eighties and re-born in the mid-nineties you reinvented your style of playing cricket to became the darlings of world cricket when you beat the Aussies to win the World Cup in 1996.
Since then you went on to be the runners-up of the World Cup albeit some confusion about the loss to India in 2011, win the Champions Trophy, the T-20 World Cup and records tumbled whenever you played. The highest team totals in all three forms of the game, the highest individual scores in different formats and so on. Your feats were legendary for such a small country.
All this made you a lucrative venture. Dollars flowed in for TV rights, advertising and the you were able to attract big crowds wherever you played your brand of innovative cricket. From Murali’s magic to Malinga’s slingy action and Mendis’ carrom balls. From Sanath’s blistering knocks to Sanga’s classic strokes and Dilshan’s scoops. You were exciting to watch, unpredictable yet entertaining to say the least.
Now, you, loved by millions are no more. Players are rotated like the changing clothes in cheap a Bollywood movie, captains come and captains go faster than the revolving door in a crowded bar. And so do the coaches.
But the administrators, the mandarins of the game remain faithful to the positions they’ve obtained by hook or by crook. Obviously ignorant of who you truly are and the fast changing ground realities, they cling to their positions like leeches sucking blood from you. And now the body is dead.
Miracles do happen but to seek a resurrection is now beyond the realms of even the supernatural. All that remains now to be done is to wait a few more months and then the last rites may be said and the game effectively buried.
Goodbye Sri Lankan cricket, we loved you and we moan your untimely death in the hands of bandits who robbed you and left your brutally bruised body out for the jackals to prey on.
Sleep well dear friend, you’ve earned it.
So long, farewell and may you rest in peace.
–from Silly Point