Silver jubilee celebrations of World Cup win in full swing

The silver jubilee celebrations of Sri Lanka’s World Cup triumph is in full swing with several activities organized in Colombo and Jaffna. The state will felicitate the nation’s World Cup heroes at an official function to be held at Temple Trees on Wednesday morning with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in attendance.

That evening there will be a dinner organized by members of World Cup winning team at Colombo’s Shangri-La. There are several other activities organized with the main event being a cricket match in Jaffna involving the World Cup winning team followed by a dinner.

Sri Lanka beat Australia in the finals of the WILLS World Cup on the 17th of March in 1996 with Aravinda de Silva’s unbeaten 107 setting up a comprehensive seven wicket win. Sanath Jayasuriya’s swashbuckling batting and his tidy left-arm spin won him the Player of the Series award as Sri Lanka became unbeaten champions with the highlight of their campaign being beating India twice in their own backyard.  In the process, Jayasuriya ended the careers of a few players; Manoj Prabhakar and Philip DeFreitas.

Apart from India, Sri Lanka beat Kenya and Zimbabwe in their group games while Australia and West Indies conceded points having refused to play in Colombo due to security reasons. Having topped the group, Sri Lanka beat England in the quarter-finals, India in the semis and Australia in the finals, who qualified having beaten New Zealand in the quarters and West Indies in the semis.

Arjuna Ranatunga’s side defied many odds when they won the final chasing although no team batting second had won a World Cup final previously.

In the five previous World Cups, Sri Lanka had never reached the second round, when they did ultimately in 1996, they went onto become champions.

Sri Lanka’s attacking style going after the bowling when fielding restrictions were on in the first 15 overs caught many teams by surprise. The ploy did not work all the time and when it backfired, the team had enough resources to post decent totals or mange run chases.

The team’s bowling resources were limited but they compensated for that with some excellent fielding. Improved fitness levels also helped the side immensely.

Sri Lanka’s tour of Australia just prior to the World Cup toughened up the team and incidents such as the ball tampering allegations in Perth and the chucking controversy on Boxing Day at the  MCG brought the side together. It was fitting that Sri Lanka met Australia in the  final and beat them comprehensively.