Yeah, I just HAD to pun on the beef.  Walked into the press con this morning, and was pleasantly surprised by the scrum of media that I saw. It’s nice to know that a non-cricket event can actually generate the interest of our cricket journos and hopefully with it the cricket mad public to join the walk that will take ...

So Sri Lanka will take on the West Indies in a knock out game at the ICC World T20. Why does that sound all too familiar? And ominous? Oh yes….now I remember. It’s because of a certain day about two years ago at the Khettarama. Shiver. What happened that day? Marlon Samuels played with nothing to lose, and Sri Lanka ...

I was checking my twitter feed today and Cricinfo had posted this stat, which I thought was quite interesting. The following are the players who have the most international wins. And this is out of all international matches played in whatever format. 1.Ponting 377, 2.SRT 307, 3. Mahela 304, 4.Kallis 303, 5. Jayasuriya 292, 6.Gilchrist/SWaugh 282, 7. MBoucher 269 8. ...

So I’m going to put my lawyer’s hat on for this.  Let me lay out the caveats first. Lance Armstrong is a cock. There is no escaping that. Even in his own book ‘It’s Not About the Bike’, he struggles to paint himself in an endearing light. The guy is not popular, and doesn’t make any bones about it. He ...

This morning I just heard a lengthy interview by Kumar Sangakkara, explaining his side of this entire Hyderabad v Kandurata fiasco, which has become a political issue rather than the commercial issue it always should have remained. The fallout is that Sangakkara has chosen to play for Kandurata. A decision he says he is ‘very happy with.’ Andrew Fernando’s Cricinfo ...

One my mates sent me this article in the morning, say it was a good one. http://island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=63431 I’m pretty sure I don’t agree. The article seeks to tag Sri Lanka as chokers and put the blame squarely on Malinga’s playing for the IPL. The writer has always been a fierce critic of the IPL and some of his arguments have merit. ...

Being a fan of the Sri Lankan cricket team is like having a schizophrenic girlfriend. One day the give you an awesome high, and make you feel like a champion. And the next day the drag you down into the depths of negativity, and make you ask yourself whether this is the same person from yesterday. Actually, it doesn’t even ...

I’ve been quiet for a month. Sorry about that, but things happened. Like the election, which I was very concerned about and had to keep a tab on. Happily though, 2015 has seen the installation of two leaders I am very chuffed about, and as I write my first blog of 2015, welcome to President Maithripala Sirisena and also to ...

This weekend in Schools rugby was fantastic. From St. Joseph’s amazing win against Trinity to Kingswood’s triumph against favourites Peters, it was a topsy turvy weekend. It is a real shame therefore, that the gloss of those underdog victories had to be outshone by the pathetic goings on at Reid Avenue.  More of that later. I like to stick to ...

The tour is done and dusted, and the results were as expected. By me at least, because it appears that a lot of people expect professional sportsmen to be able to turn up at no notice and be at the top of their game. And while this may be true of your average weekend badminton player, it is certainly not ...

Before the World Cup started, I wrote this post https://ballhandling101.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/what-mahela-needs-to-do-to-win-us-games/ I still believe that if MJ doesn’t really fire in a game, either with a big hundred or a quick 40 we probably won’t win that game bar exceptionally good performances by more than one other player. So in situations like we were in on Sunday, the MJ that turned ...

It was only going to be a matter of time. Sachithra Senanayake has been one of our best cricketers in the last couple of years, with the bat, in the field, and most importantly with the ball. His hard work has been amply rewarded by his status as the leading wicket taker in the England series so far. However, there ...

I’ve been banging on about this for a while now, and it’s getting a bit old. But in typical fashion I am going to keep flogging this horse. As I said yesterday, Sri Lanka haven’t given themselves the best chance of winning this World Cup. Lasith Malinga is not yet fit, and we don’t have enough quality fast bowling to ...

I always find it amusing how much doom and gloom descends on social media and general conversation when the Sri Lankan team doesn’t do well. They really are an oasis of joy in the desert of Sri Lankan mediocrity. But it can also be dangerous, when we place so much emphasis on the performance of a few blokes on whom ...

Recently the Daily Mirror came up with (another) tasteless headline on their website, saying that Lasith Malinga had ‘abandoned’ his country. I was the type to use hashtags, this particular hashtag wouldn’t have an end to the expletives that would be necessary to describe that particular take on the facts. This is what has happened. Lasith Malinga, the captain of ...

Today one of my mates had put up and FB status saying ‘Sri Lanka Rugby Fan: Work it! Work it! Support him! Aiyo….” This admirably sums up a large volume of helpful suggestions from the sidelines, especially at school games, when all the u13ers mothers turn coach. To say nothing of the fathers. I was on air with Shaq on ...

There’s cricket being played. Apparently. In England. In the freezing cold of…wait for it….glorious summer.  Sri Lanka have played a few warm up matches and lost both of those that had any cricket played. I daresay that had the Pakistan game got off the ground, that may have been lost as well. With only the top 8 teams participating, the ...

So I swam for the Mercantile Swimming Meet for the first time yesterday. As they say with all first times it gets messy. There’s pain. And blood everywhere. Metaphorical blood of course.  Bloody hell…I never imagined the 30-34 age group would be so competitive. The guy who won the 50 fly went 28 seconds. That’s nationals finals standard. WTF?? Screw ...

Sri Lanka drew the second test against Bangladesh, and honestly on a pitch on which 1600 plus runs were scored, you can hardly blame the Lankans for not winning it. Except of course, that there was a chance that we didn’t capitalise on, and then went on to bitch about Bangladesh. Let’s look at this Test from Bangla’s point of ...

So Royal played Patana in the fixture that caused so much conroversy last season. Probably sensing some drama, all of Colombo had turned up for the game, and it was without exaggeration probably the biggest crowd I’d ever seen at CR.  The hype about this Patana team had been raging for a while, and with Walpola’s forwards and Ibrahim’s backs ...