Lahiru Kumara has copped a lot of criticism for his failure at the death. Courtesy: Alex Davidson/Getty Images Of late, Lahiru Kumara has become a caricature in the consciousness of the Sri Lankan fandom, having failed to defend 15 and 16 runs off final overs in the T20 World Cup and the LPL respectively. His successive failures have made him ...
Courtesy: AFP In Sri Lanka, no one is sent home permanently. It doesn’t take too long for a messiah to become a pariah, and then a messiah once again. All it takes is a clever manipulation of optics. In this perennially nostalgic part of the world, the past can be easily made to seem better than the present. This holds ...
Mathews has won. Just three balls into his spell in his comeback match, Angelo Mathews has Dawid Malan nick behind. He has given Sri Lanka their first breakthrough. He has put the brakes on England when they were threatening to get going. But hang on. He is not done yet. Is this him zoning in on the ball from ...
Ben Navaratne stands up to the stumps as Sathy Coomaraswamy bowls Don Bradman. (1948) Sri Lanka has never been bereft of good wicket-keepers. The current supply of wicket-keeping batsmen is such that the team could field a batting line-up full of wicket-keepers. Perhaps, the current pedigree of world-class wicket-keepers in Sri Lanka should owe their genesis to one adroit stumper ...
Courtesy: ANI A casual look at the way Sadeera Samarawickrama operates in ODIs should tell you where his strength lies, which is in the ease with which he plays spin and the numbers shore it up. In 2023, he averaged 60.13 against spin in ODIs while striking at 96.98 in contrast to 36.9 at 95.84 against pace. Even though his ...
Before the provincial tournament that was played in the prelude to the World Cup, Ashantha de Mel had asked for 5mm of grass to be left on the pitches to mimic the ‘English’ conditions. Fast forward two months, the same Ashantha de Mel is complaining about green pitches in England during the World Cup. His complaint includes a whole laundry ...
Mahela Jayawardena playing soccer during a warm up session. While representing a nation in so much as one sport is a cause for profound pride, there have been players whose transcendental corporal virtuosities have helped them quixotically push the limits of mortal human abilities. The double internationals- players who represent their nations in two sports internationally- are, no wonder, a ...
When finding one slinger in a team is rare enough, Sri Lanka now enjoy the luxury of playing two slingers in Matheesha Pathirana and Nuwan Thushara in the same team. With two bowlers bowling with the same action, a tendency among fans and some experts to see them as like-for-like can be seen. This article examines the veracity of ...
Hashan Tillakaratne could bat, keep wickets and bowl with either of his arms. In cricket, the term all-rounder often refers to a player who can bat and bowl. However, there have been players who have pushed the scope of the definition to include every skill that is manifested in a cricket field, viz., batting, bowling and keeping wickets, becoming true ...
Sri Lanka’s batting struggle in Tests is not reserved only to overseas matches. Batting collapses in overseas Test series are nothing new to Sri Lanka. It has been happening for a very long time. Even though the absence of both Sangakkara and Jayawardene are highlighted as the major reason for Sri Lanka’s parlous batting in overseas Test matches, the team ...
Kusal Perera’s wicketkeeping has received accolades from Ian Healy. Let us get this straight: Kusal Perera was never supposed to be an opening batsman or a number three in tests. He, since his debut, was expected to perform the role of an aggressive wicketkeeper-batsman at number seven along the lines of Australia’s legendary Adam Gilchrist. He has already had Ian ...
Sri Lanka’s performance was along expected lines. Courtesy: Getty Images Sri Lanka’s 2022 T20 World Cup campaign came to an expected end when Australia beat Afghanistan at Brisbane. Save for the unexpected capitulation to Namibia, Sri Lanka’s campaign was largely along expected lines. Now that the sun has set on Sri Lanka’s campaign, let’s look at their performance, the positives ...
Sri Lanka’s promising young opener Niroshan Dickwella has been suspended for two limited-overs internationals following him showing dissent at an erroneous decision by the umpire. The incident occurred during the second T20I between Sri Lanka and Australia in Geelong. Umpire Simon Fry declared Dickwella out when the southpaw tried to scoop James Faulkner over his head. However, replays showed ...
Courtesy: tripsavvy.com Ever since hosting the first recorded cricket match on the island in 1832, Colombo, the bustling business capital of Sri Lanka, has been the epicenter of cricket in the country. With as many as three active international cricket grounds and two other grounds that have hosted international matches sometime in the past, Colombo remains the lifeblood of cricket ...
Who is your favourite male cricketer?”, Indian women’s cricket team captain gets asked before the Women’s World Cup in England. “Do you ask that same question to a male cricketer? Do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is?”, Mithali Raj ripostes. Enter gender politicians. This seemingly innocuous scenario is distorted in every possible way by self-styled feminists so ...
Courtesy: Outlook India The ODI leg of Sri Lanka’s tour of India produced expected outcomes both on the field and off it. Sri Lanka were expected to lose the ODI series to India in India—to one of the favorites to win the World Cup in a country Sri Lanka have historically fared worse. At the same time, the demands to ...
Pathum Nissanka and Ashen Bandara are the two greenhorns Sri Lanka cricket has reposed its faith on to upend their fortunes in limited-overs cricket. Yet, their selection is baffling. Neither of them has a good record in the shorter formats at the domestic level. Nor were they picked to play in the inaugural Lanka Premiere League. So, how did they ...
Sanath Jayasuriya and Aravinda de Silva both had a profound impact in Sri Lankan wins. Sri Lanka is the youngest Test playing nation to win a World Cup. Ever since debuting in ODIs in the 1975 World Cup, Sri Lanka has played 782 matches, winning 368 of them and losing 374. Throughout their existence in ODI cricket, Sri Lanka has ...
Courtesy: BCCI It is not an exaggeration to say that Wanindu Hasaranga is Sri Lanka’s best white-ball spinner since the retirement of Muthiah Muralidaran. Even though not a big spinner of the ball, his impeccable accuracy and well-disguised googly make him one of the most potent spinners in white-ball cricket at present. However, he has so far not been able ...
Courtesy: Reuters Ladies and gentlemen, Suranga Lakmal has announced his retirement. Sans much fanfare. Sans any media blitz. In a way, it is unfair on a bowler who has carried the entire weight of a fast-bowling attack on his own shoulders—shoulders for which the weight is ostensibly a few kilograms too many—for years. But, at the same time, this is ...
