Errol Fernando
The gods who fix matches are rubbing their hands with glee!!! They fixed all the matches with consummate skill to achieve their ultimate god-almighty aim. First, they made sure that the best and worst teams were in the same group and were also the greatest arch-rivals in the world.
Mariamma, one of the groundsmen (sic)
ESPNcricinfo staff,
Former Sri Lanka offspinner Muttiah Muralitharan has become the first player from his country to be voted into the ICC Hall of Fame. He will be formally inducted into it later this year, along with the late England fast bowler George Lohmann, the late Australia opener Arthur Morris and former Australia Women captain Karen Rolton. Continue reading
Andrew Fidel Fernando, courtesy of The Cricket Monthly, at ESPNcricinfo … http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1087120/arjuna-versus …where the title is “Arjuna Versus”
January 1999: Sri Lankan supporters show Ranatunga some love outside Adelaide Oval, where he was facing a disciplinary hearing
v Australia, 1995-96
Sri Lanka have played in higher-octane, better contested and far more watchable series, but for pure watershed value none has left its mark on the island’s cricket like this pre-World Cup thrashing in Australia. If Ranatunga had not been at the helm, things might have gone very differently; it was the kind of tour that can run teams aground.
Filed under Adelaide Oval, Australia Cricket, Australian cricket, confrontations on field, cricket and life, cricket governance, cricket in India, cricket tamashas, cricketing icons, murali, patriotic excess, performance, politics and cricket, sanath jayasuriya, Sri Lanka Cricket, tower of strength, unusual people, violent intrusions
Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo, 19 April 2017, where the title runs “Why is SLC in public-relations overdrive?” … and the by-line urns: “Thilanga Sumathipala’s board has done as much for Sri Lanka’s cricket as any other, but the chairman’s desperation for the limelight does them no favours;”
Five men stand in front of the sponsors’ backdrop at the presentation that follows Sri Lanka’s T20 win over Bangladesh. Four of them are holding cheques; the man who holds nothing is Thilanga Sumathipala, SLC president and unelected deputy speaker of the House. He stands closest to the presenter, and his presence seems gratuitous at first. When proceedings begin, however, it becomes clear that the camera is smitten with Sumathipala and that he is smitten with it. When Kusal Perera comes up to be interviewed about his Player-of-the-Match performance, there Sumathipala is, looking paternally over the player’s shoulder with a benevolent grin. While other awards are being handed out, the camera may stray, but as if bound by fate, it always has a way of finding its way back to Sumathipala. It captures his coy smirks and his firm handshakes. 
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Quintus de Zylva
Thilanga and Samadara Sumathipala have been the strength behind Sri Lanka’s emergence as a T20 force to be reckoned with. The manner in which they humbled Australia at the MCG and in Geelong must surely have sent shivers up Cricket Australia.
Thilanga and Samadara nursed Lasith back in to a state in which he could believe in himself and provide the backbone to the team for inspiring successes in T20 cricket. His toe-crushing yorkers will be spoken about for many a year to come.
Boasting greater solidity and bodily weight today, the triumphant Sri Lankan cricket team of 1996 were hosted in celbratory manner in the land of the vanquished THEN— in Melbourne, the cricketing centre of the cricketing giants Australia,
Rex Clementine, in The Sunday Island, 6 November 2016, where the title runs ” Golden era of Sri Lankan cricket”
The World Cup winning Sri Lankan cricket team has just concluded a trip to Australia to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their triumph on that remarkable night of March 17th 1996 at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. Seeing images of the team touring Australia brought back nostalgic memories as it was the players of this particular team that formed the nucleus of the side that ushered in the golden era of Sri Lankan cricket. The four year period from 1995 to 1998 can easily be considered as the golden era of Sri Lankan cricket for their outstanding achievements and the fear they created in opposition. They were not as dominant as Clive Lloyd’s West Indies of the 1970s, but the exciting brand of cricket they played helped change the way the sport was played.
The eight teams in the finals lineup –spruced up …. The captains are, front row from left: APB Tennekoon (Sri Lanka), Asif Iqbal (Pakistan), Clive Lloyd (West Indies), Mike Brearley (England), Kim Hughes (Australia), Mark Burgess (New Zealand), S Venkataraghavan (India), GE Brisbane (Canada) … Photograph: Patrick Eagar via Getty Images
