 Muttiah Muralitharan lies on the ground after taking a catch to dismiss West Indian batsman Phil Simmons during the Quadrangular one-day Cricket Tournament in Lahore yesterday. West Indies scored 237 for eight in their 50 overs. REUTERS |
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Though struggling at one stage at 69 for 3 with star batsmen Sanath Jayasuriya and Aravinda de Silva out, Sri Lanka led by their two most experienced players recovered with cool professional confidence to smash the powerful West Indies by seven wickets with some ten overs to spare in their first Pakistan Independence Cup match in Lahore last night.
With the night dew making bowling and fielding difficult, number 3 batsman Roshan Mahanama and captain cool Arjuna Ranatunga posted a record unbeaten 171 runs stand for the fourth wicket to lead Sri Lanka to a victory that confirmed their status as favourites to win the title in the four nation tournament. By a spilt decision, Ranatunga was surprisisngly named as Man of the Match though Mahanama had batted longer and scored more than him.
Bringing back memories of Sri lanka's glory in Lahore, Ranatunga made the winning hit to the boundary in the same style and virtuallu to the same spot.
Earlier West Indies skipper Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose — regarded as the most devastated pace duo in the world — put the Sri Lanka batsmen through a torrid time. Opener Marvan Atapattu, looking terribly uncomfortable against the fiery pace fell at 17 and a subdued Jayasuriya was dismissed with the total at 53. Sri Lanka's next big hope, the little atom Aravinda de Silva began with a bang hitting the top Caribbean pace star Franklyn Rose for three fours in one over. But Rose got the bouquet after the brickbats when he dismissed inthe same over and Sri Lanka were looking dismal at 69 for 3.
Then began the great recovery operation led by Sri Lanka's most seasoned campaigners. Sri Lanka could not have been more satisfied restricting the West Indies to 237 for eight in 50 overs, despite an sturdy contribution of 188 runs by Shivnarian Chanderpaul, Brian Lara and Carlhooper.
This was the trio the reigning world champions needed to have early. But still, when the West Indies got into the top gear being 170 for two in 40 overs, Sri Lanka picked up six wickets for 67 runs in the remaining 10 overs to stay in with a very good chance of opening the Pakistan golden jubilee quadrangular tournament with a victory.
While Sri Lanka once again displayed their fighting skills, the vulnerability in the West Indies middle order was exposed and that may be of special interest to Pakistan who play the Caribbeans in a three-test series immediately after the one-day event.
Not to belittle the tactical moves by Arjuna Ranatunga in the final half of West Indies innings, his counterpart Courtney Walsh also helped the Sri Lanka skipper in his cause. He started off with a surprise by holding back pinch-hitter Phil Simmons, making his 19th comeback, and open the innings through Stuart Williams and Shivnarian Chanderpaul.
And when the need of the hour was to rotate the strike back to Carl Hooper in the final six overs, Curtly Ambrose was sent out and the end result was that Hooper had to take the control of proceedings to be finally out to Sanjeeva de Silva who finished with 2 for 31. Hooper scored an elegant 68 off 61 balls with four boundaries and a straight six off Sanath Jayasuriya. But most importantly, he shared a 75-run partnership from 78 balls with champion batsman Brian Lara.
Lara, after an uncomfortable and ordinary start, settled down to play some sparkling shots all over the park. His exquisite 78 included seven boundaries from 108 balls. Lara fell to an adventurous stroke off Jayasuriya when he tried to play an inside-out shot to find his off-stump hit by the white leather. Lara was also involved in a 79-run second wicket partnership in 151 balls with Chanderpaul. The partnership was more an innings building one after Chaminda Vaas had accounted for Williams in his second over. Chanderpaul's contribution was 42 runs with a solitary boundary that, in fact, came in the second over of the innings when he worked Sanjeeva de Silva to the square-leg boundary.
Chaminda Vaas, in his first over of the second spell, reached a landmark when he had Simmons (20) to become the second Sri Lankan after Muttiah Muralitharan to capture 100 or more wickets in one-day internationals. Vaas is playing his 79th match..
WEST INDIES S.Williams c Ranatunga b Vaas 5 S.Chanderpaul lbw b A.de Silva 42 B.Lara b Jayasuriya 80 C.Hooper c L. de Silva b S.de Silva 68 P.Simmons c Muralitharan b Vaas 20 C.Ambrose not out 4 F.Rose run out 1 R.Holder run out 2 D.Williams b S.de Silva 2 Extras (lb-5 nb-4 w-4) 13 Total (for eight wickets in 50 overs) 237 Fall of wickets: 1-16 2-98 3-172 4-221 5-228 6-229 7-232 8-237. Did not bat: R.Lewis, C.Walsh. Bowling: Vaas 10-0-35-2 (nb2, w1), S.de Silva 10-2-31-2 (nb1, w3), Dharmasena 10-0-55-0, Muralitharan 6-0-46-0 (nb1), Jayasuriya 8-0-33-1, A. de Silva 6-0-32-1. SRI LANKA M. Attapattu c Hooper b Walsh 1 S. Jayasuriya c Lewis b Hooper 24 R. Mahanama not out 94 A. De Silva c Chandrapaul b Rose 13 A. Ranatunga not out 87 Extras (Ib b nb W) 21 Total in 38.2 3 for 240 Fall of Wickets 1- 17 (Marvan), 2-56 (Sanath), 3- 69 (Aravinda), Bowling: C.Ambrose 8 0 52 0, C.Wlash 10 1 44 1, F.Rose 7 0 66 1, C.Hooper 8 0 31 1, R.Lewis 5 0 24 0, P.Simmons 2 0 19 0 Man of the Match: Arjuna Ranatunga (Sri Lanka) Today: South Africa vs Pakistan
The Chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC), Jagmohan Dalmiya, was accused by his Indian compatriot of favouring World Tel in various television rights deals.
Sunil Dev, a former Indian team manager, has levelled allegations against the former secretary of the Indian cricket board in his four page letter, Dev, to recall, was the manager of the Indian team which toured South Africa and was vocal about his team members being involved in betting scandals during the trip. Dev is also the honorary sports secretary of the Delhi and District Cricket Association, the Punjab seat which controls cricket in areas like Delhi and an integral part of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
In many instances, Dev points to ways and means whereby Dalmiya favoured World Tel over and above other companies.
On the first page, in the third para, he says: "In the lead up to the World Cup, you (Jagmohan Dalmiya) had recounted your nerve wracking experience of dealing with an outfit like World Tel. In fact, you had informed me that the PILCOM had made a mistake by entering into a contract with World Tel which had nothing to do with television and that they had to engage a British Television Company - Grand Slam - to do their telecast.
"This obviously shocked all of us, as the least we would expect from anybody handling the coverage of such a prestigious event is to, at least, be in that business. Surely problems surmounted when World Tel did not pay Grand Slam on time and they threatened to pull out the plugs. As a result, when I heard that World Tel was the compnay to handle the coverage for the Independence Cup, I promptly wrote to you on March 8, 1996. You never bothered to reply to my letter."
Dev then points to reports in the Indian press which point to a nexus between World Tel and Dalmiya. Says Dev in his letter on Page 2: ".. on March 21, the Express wrote that the BCCI had arm twisted Doordarshan into taking World Tel on board.
These reports had naturally created an impression that somebody in the Board was favouring World Tel. In fact, I insisted that we must take up the issue with the Express since it involved the prestige and dignity of the Board. Again, there was no response to my letter..."
On the Sri Lankan front, the World Tel official who revealed to SL board president Upali Dharmadasa that a senior official was demanding money on the side is now identified as being Mark Mascarenhas. Reportedly, when Mascarenhas was in Sri Lanka for negotiations on at least three different occasions between July and September this year, he was using the cellular phone hired at his request by Dharmadasa.
Once while driving Mascarenhas back to the Taj Samudra, from a meeting with this official, Dharmadasa casually informed the TV boss that a look at his phone bill showed that he had been in frequent touch with this official and then inquired if the two were close friends. Allegedly, it was then Mascarenhas revealed that the official had been pressurising him to dole out the remaining US$50,000 (the first instalment had been paid at the ICC meeting that summer).
It is now reported the Dharmadasa immediately informed his CEO Dhammika Ranatunga, the secretary Mirando and board treasurer Kumar Weerasooriya and the Sports Minister S. B. Dissanayake who, according to Mascarenhas, was the man for whom this official was demanding the balanced amount.
Further to The Sunday Times exposure last week regarding the Women's Cricket Association of Sri Lanka, the secretary of the Sports Ministry, Dr. R.M. K. Ratnayake, disclosed that the association has not been approved by the Sports Minister and put a stop to rumours of a team going abroad by stating that the Minister has not allowed and will not allow any team to go abroad at this stage.
A junior rugby team from a leading school in Colombo is insisting that players picked for a foreign tour purchase the air-tickets to make the tour.
Some parents of the players, have already purchased tickets for this tour while some others are not in a position to do so ,which worries their children.
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