Confident Sri Lanka face scandal-hit Aussies
Sri Lanka heads again to the Oval tomorrow for their final Group ‘A’ match of the Champions Trophy with renewed confidence against Australia for another do or die battle.
While Sri Lanka’s confidence is at an all time high after a resounding win over the England on Thursday. Australians, still to win a match here have been contrastingly hit by a major scandal about a serious team rift on top of injury to skipper Michael Clarke.
Sri Lanka can definitely make it to the semis with a victory. But the winless Australians will have to do much more work to go through even with a victory as a lot depends on who the winner would be in today’s match between England and New Zealand in Cardiff. The Group ‘A’ remains poised on a knife’s edge.
The situation has further been complicated by weather, and unfortunately plenty of rain has been predicted both for Cardiff today and London on Monday.
The bad news is that UK weather predictions are fairly accurate unlike in Sri Lanka despite some sarcasm from England captain Alistair Cook.
“Well, I’ve just been told the forecast is not great. I’m not sure I’m too trusting in the British forecasts three days out though,” Cook said on Thursday after the seven-wicket loss to Sri Lanka at the Oval
However nothing has changed in the original forecast in the ensuing days.
Kumar Sangakkara said Sri Lanka needs to lift every department of their game for wins.
If both matches are rained out, New Zealand and England will both go through to the semis. However there are other aspects to consider too.
If New Zealand wins and the Oval match is abandoned then New Zealand and Sri Lanka will make it through. If England wins and the Oval match is rained out then England and New Zealand will advance. But if England wins by a massive margin, then Sri Lanka will be through instead of New Zealand.
If the Cardiff match is abandoned and Sri Lanka wins, Sri Lanka will join New Zealand in the next round. If the Cardiff match is abandoned and Australia wins New Zealand will go through with either England or Australia depending on the run rate.
If both matches go ahead as scheduled, the two winners can make it, but the only difference could be if England and Australia win, then Australia will have to improve much on their net rate to advance ahead of New Zealand.
Thursday’s hero Kumar Sangakkara was not bothered about all the complications. They could not change but said one aspect of their act – the Lankans are concerned about is their fielding. He admitted that it was below par on Thursday.
“Quite a contrasting fielding performance from Cardiff to here” said Sangakkara.
“At Cardiff we were outstanding. I think we out-fielded New Zealand, which is pretty tough to do. Here we were pretty poor, so we know we need to lift every department of our game, so hopefully we can do that. But whatever happens on the field, the key is to try and win and win at the end of the day, so that’s what we’ll be trying to do” Sangakkara elaborated while pointing out the area for his team to improve.
Meanwhile Sri Lanka’s opponents Australia have been going through a rough time as they prepared for the crucial match due to the controversy surrounding the now well-publicised bar incident involving opening batsman David Warner.
Skipper Michael Clarke denied on Friday that there was a serious rift in the team. It was speculated that star all rounder Shane Watson was miffed by the double standards adopted by the team management in treating Warner leniently despite the serious incident.
Watson, the then Aussie vice captain was one of the four players disciplined during Australia’s disastrous tour of India recently and sent back home from the tour over the failure to fill a form. A television channel had named Watson as the whistleblower on the Warner incident.
Warner had got drunk at a Birmingham bar and had assaulted England batsman Joe Root which earned the Aussie a three-week ban effectively ruling him out of the Champions Trophy.
But the media reported that Watson who had been livid over Australia trying to hush up the incident quite contrastingly to how he had been treated in India had made a complaint to the head coach Mickey Arthur.
Clarke rejected the allegation at the press conference. “No, he certainly didn’t,” Clarke said
“That allegation is completely false. And no, Shane certainly didn’t take up with Mickey that he had a problem with how we as a leadership group dealt with it. That allegation is completely false.
But apart from the questions about the team unity, Australia are also unsure if Clarke himself will play against Sri Lanka tomorrow due to a recurrence of his back problems last week.
“It is getting there,” Clarke said.
“I can sit here and say I will be 100% fit for the game on Monday. But I have been saying that for the last two games as well. It is about judging my back every day. It is slowly getting better, there is no doubt about it, but I am as keen as ever to try to get on the field and help this team have some success.”
Hosts England have also been involved in a major controversy by yesterday as several newspaper reports suggested that the reason for the umpires to change the ball midway into Sri Lanka innings on Thursday was alleged ball tampering by England players.The incident happened when umpires Aleem Dar and Billy Bowden changed one of the two balls in the 26th over during Sri Lanka‘s magnificent chase.
Despite the speculation over why the ball had been changed, ball tampering allegations surfaced openly on Friday when former England captain Bob Willis alleged on Sky Sports that one England player has been illegally damaging the ball with his fingernails.
Kumar Sangakkara was very careful in his words about the incident and cleverly said that “the wicket was not abrasive enough to create that much reverse swing”
“I think it was just the ball being either damaged or I’m not sure what it was really. But there was not much reverse out there. I thought Jimmy tried to get it to reverse at the end and he bowled really well, but the wicket was pretty flat, and I don’t think the wicket was abrasive enough to create that much reverse swing for England,” said Sangakkara when he was asked comment on the incident after the match.
Cook was not too happy that the ball was changed just as it was starting to reverse.
“The ball was changed because it was out of shape. That was the umpire’s reasoning. Yeah, the umpires make those decisions, so yeah, you have to you have to accept them. Sometimes you don’t think they’re the right decisions, but there’s not much you can do about it.”
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