Captains Joe Root (England) and Lahiru Tirimanne (SL President’s XI) faced up the creeping threat of coronavirus cheerfully in novel style — foregoing the alternative path of a namasthe as a replacement for the normal handshake that was deployed prior to matches in the era before the CV has all of us concerned …..
ONE: Sri Lankan Squad leave for Pakistan with Prot
Sri Lanka’s depleted national cricket squad left for Pakistan on Tuesday expressing confidence in security promises by the hosts despite reports that the team could be targeted by militants. The Sri Lanka team were attacked in Lahore in 2009. Since then most international teams have refused to tour the South Asian country, leaving Pakistan to play nearly all their “home” games in the United Arab Emirates.
ESPNcricinfo News Item, 11 September 2019 …. https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/27592241/lahiru-thirimanne-dasun-shanaka-lead-sri-lanka-pakistan
Lahiru Thirimanne and Dasun Shanaka have named Sri Lanka’s ODI and T20I captains respectively for the limited-overs tour of Pakistan. The announcement comes two days after Dimuth Karunaratne and Lasith Malinga, the incumbents, informed the Sri Lanka Cricket of their unwillingness to tour Pakistan, along with eight others, citing security concerns.
There is a photograph in The ISLAND, this Monday 5th August,of the Kiwi cricketers at practice at the Premadasa Stadium with armed guards as security …. a picture that has not made it to the web versions
COMPARE THIS ITEM from 2011: Paul Radley, “The Black Caps are focused on beating Sri Lanka in the semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup as their presence goes unnoticed, even by security officials.” 29 March 2011, https://www.thenational.ae/sport/new-zealand-happy-to-keep-a-low-profile-as-they-take-on-sri-lanka-1.564137
Nuwan Ranasinghe, in The ROAR, 29 May 2019, where the title is “What Cricket Really means to Sri Lanka”
Contrary to popular belief, cricket has never actually been viewed as a religion in Sri Lanka. Whilst Sri Lankans do love their cricket, they are not essentially a cricket-mad people as is so often stereotypically coined by the Western media. Decades of civil war, a devastating tsunami, soul-destroying floods, monsoon rains and now this latest terror bombing has reminded Sri Lankans that there certainly are more important things in life than a simple game of cricket.
Lasith Malinga spearheads Sri Lanka’s attack at the 2019 World Cup. (Michael Bradley/AFP/Getty Images)
Beer Consumption brings Barmy Army a Cricket Match with Lion Brewery
Lion Brewery PLC hosted a friendly T20 cricket match between the Brewery and England’s Barmy Army at the Colts Ground in Colombo recently. The world renowned ‘Barmy Army’ squad was in Sri Lanka to support their home team at the recently concluded Sri Lanka tour…. Item in Island, 6 December 2018
Shashank Kishore in ESPNcricinfo, 26 January 2018
Naveen-ul-Haq, the Afghanistan Under-19 captain, has dedicated the team’s maiden entry into the World Cup semi-finals to the victims of the attacks that have rocked Jalalabad and Kabul over the last two days. The entire team wore black armbands to mourn those who lost their lives during the quarter-final against hosts New Zealand in Christchurch on Thursday.
The targets of the attacks were the UNICEF’s Save the Children office in Jalalabad on Wednesday and the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul on Thursday. “It was very sad for us to hear of the attacks on children in Jalalabad and at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul,” Naveen said. “We wore black armbands to show our support [for the grieving families and friends of the victims].”
Filed under performance, terrorist intrusions, Under 19 cricket, unusual people
An Item in The Island, 18 October 2017 with the title “Wars, riots and abandoned tours”
A Sri Lankan player boards a Pakistan military helicopter after terrorists opened fire on the team bus during the 2009 tour.
The dramatic announcement on Friday (October 17), that West Indies would be cutting short their tour of India because of a pay dispute, was not the first time a major international cricket series had come to an unexpected end. Here’s a snapshot of several other tours that ended abruptly in unusual circumstances. Continue reading
Ahsan Raza was a wicketkeeper and tailend batsman who moved across to umpire after retiring as a player, making his first appearances as an international reserve official in the series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 2008-09. He was travelling to the Gaddafi Stadium on the third day of the second Test when he was shot in the back and critically wounded in a terrorist attack aimed at the Sri Lanka squad.
He was one of thr four officiating umpies at the recent T20 match in Lahore.
From ESPNcricnfo
Did you know that Murali scored 22 runs in 16 balls at a rate of 137.50?
Mind you this was because Sangakkara, Samaraweera and Dilshan had set up a platform over most of two days by scoring 104, 214 and 145 respectively !
So: Sri Lanka built up a first innings total of 604 runs after being sent in …. and perhaps established another record in having two centurions run themselves out in the same innings!
Samaraweera batting …. and injured by shrapnel in ambulance
