The Australian and English cricket teams stepped out and joined a huge crowd at Adelaide Oval today Friday 6th December in honouring Nelson Mandela’s contribution to South Africa and the world by two minutes of silence. Continue reading
Sachin Tendulkar: Enigma or Anachronism?
Mahinda Wijesinghe, courtesy of The Island
In the sporting world, when all-time greats such as Pele, Muhammad Ali, Pete Sampras, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Carl Lewis, Sir Donald Bradman, Walter Lindrum (the Bradman of Billiards, and probably the only instance when a rule of the game was changed to circumvent a player’s personal skill) fade from the spotlight, and/or, in the not too distant future, when the phenomenal Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt hangs up his spikes, there will be a void, albeit a temporary one, until the next champion comes along.
Comparing one champion with a former one is a futile exercise. Conditions may vary, for example, the 1968 Mexico Summer Olympics was held at an altitude of 7,350 ft. above sea level which was the major reason, experts concluded, that enabled U.S. long jump athlete Bob Beamon to leap an incredible 29 ft.2 ft ins (8.90 m) in the rarefied atmosphere – a record that stood for 23 years! Additionally, changes in rules (as above in billiards), technological advances in training, sophisticated equipment and improved physical techniques make equitable comparisons a well-nigh impossibility. For instance, the scissors style was improved to the Western roll and then came the Fosbury Flop in the high-jump event, and so on. From cricket bats weighing a tad over 2lbs with basic willow wood to the modern 3lbs-plus carbon fiber reinforced polymer-supported sledge-hammer bats that current players now wield is yet another factor that hinders efforts of equating the past with the present. Continue reading
Guided by Pubudu Dassanayake NEPAL scrap, scrape and cry their way into the World T20 championship
Nagraj Gollapudi, in ESPNcricinfo, 28 November 2013
On November 16, Nepal were chasing 183 against Kenya, who were favourites to win the Group B encounter in the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in Dubai. They needed 17 runs off the final over. In the middle were the captain, Paras Khadka, and Sharad Vesawkar. As soon as the tall Vesawkar hit the first of three sixes to win the match, his team-mate Sagar Pun began to cry. Pun, a 20-year-old batsman, was padded up because he was the next man in, and he cried louder as Vesawkar took Nepal closer to the target.
“Matches like these only bring the emotions out easily. Imagine if a wicket had fallen and he [Pun] was the next man in, what might have happened,” Khadka tells ESPNcricinfo from Abu Dhabi with a chuckle, explaining Pun’s reaction. “Everybody was so keen. Everybody was pushing themselves. Every one of us believes in fate. Every one of us believes in God.” Continue reading
Filed under child of empire, cricket and life, performance, unusual people, work ethic
Lahiru Jayaratne to be a Trainee at the Darren Lehmann Academy in 2014
Michael Roberts
Sri Lanka Cricket South Australia and Sri Lanka Cricket have combined to sponsor a short-term training stint at the Darren Lehmann Academy for a promising young player from the island in 2014. Sri Lanka Cricket has now selected LAHIRU JAYARATNE for this course. Lahiru has played for Sri Lanka Under 19s and for the present Under 23 team. He is also a member of the A Team squad selected for the forthcoming series against England A in Sri Lanka. His official profile is detailed below. Continue reading
More Scenes from the Murali Cup on Finals Day
Murali greets St. Peters’ College players Continue reading
Baila Cricket at Lords, August 1984
Janaka Malwatta, courtesy of ESPNcricinfo, where the title is different and where you will find comments from Sri Lankan bloggers
August 1984. That rarest of beasts, a hot English summer. Grandmaster Melle Mel’s “White Lines”, the soundtrack of that summer, brought a new music, hip-hop, to the streets. I was 16 years old, on the brink of adulthood, and wherever I looked, change was in the air. Eclipsing all else was the momentous event about to unfurl at Lord’s; Sri Lanka’s first official Test in England. On a hazy Thursday morning, I joined a throng of Sri Lankan supporters at the Grace Gates. It felt as if every Sri Lankan I knew was at the match. Aunties carried foil packets crammed with patties and vadai, uncles sneaked off to the bars as soon as they opened. It had been a long wait for Test status. The Sri Lankans had come to enjoy themselves.
Sidath Wettimuny
For the England cricket team, playing a match against a fledgling Test country at the fag end of the summer was probably the last thing they wanted to do. David Gower’s team had been battered in every sense by Clive Lloyd’s West Indians in five brutal Test matches. At The Oval, scene of the final denouement, placards proclaimed the “blackwash”. Perhaps Gower was simply weary when he invited Sri Lanka to bat first on a wicket so placid that Ranjan Madugalle remarked, “Machang, you could go to sleep on this”, shortly before he was bowled. Continue reading
Hitting the Leather: Beefy’s Walk and Murali Cup off and striding
I: see http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/680757.html
Cricket as warfare
Don Hodges, courtesy of SPORT, 25 November 2013, where the title is “Ashes 2013-2014: Sooner or later, arms and ribs will be broken”
The news that Jonathan Trott is returning to England as a result of a “long-stand stress-related” condition puts England’s defeat in the First Test at Brisbane into perspective. Cricket is not, as Alastair Cook said at yesterday’s post-match press conference, “a war”. It’s a game. A highly professional, intensely contested, increasingly well remunerated game. But a game nonetheless.
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