The Lord’s heartbreak

by Rex Clementine

Sri Lanka may not be one of the favourites to win the upcoming T-20 World Cup in the US and the Caribbean, but time was when opponents feared the side like the plague. Attacking batsmen, mystery spinners and unorthodox fast bowlers were Sri Lanka’s recipe for success in sport’s showpiece events.

When you are covering these ICC events for your respective publications, having a media accreditation only would not help. You need to have something called the match ticket. For high profile semi-finals and finals, there’s a pecking order. Your country needs to be playing the game for you to be certain of a match ticket. For a number of years, you didn’t have to worry for invariably Sri Lanka would make the knockouts.

The T-20 World Cup in England in 2009 was one such. Kumar Sangakkara was in his first outing as captain and the team cruised to the finals and were hardly tested.

Sanga as captain was a breath of fresh air. His batsmanship was all about hard work, meticulous planning and leaving nothing for chance. He molded the team in his own image. He didn’t necessarily agree with all men who represented the Sri Lankan team. There were individuals with diverse opinions. But the captain’s biggest strength was getting everyone to work towards a common goal.

Sri Lanka were in a tough group and qualifying to the second round looked a huge task. But they cruised past Australia and West Indies and in the second round overcame New Zealand, Pakistan and Ireland.

West Indies made it to the semi-finals and again Sri Lanka came up with a convincing performance winning by 57 runs.

It is in the finals that they had their one bad game. That one bad game cost them a World Cup. Tillekeratne Dilshan had launched his scoop shot in that tournament and was quite a sensation. He fell for a duck in the final and soon Sri Lanka collapsed to 70 for six. Although Sanga and Angelo Mathews were involved in a rearguard action adding an unbroken 68 runs for the seventh wicket, neither of them could bat with the freedom they would have liked to.

A target of 139 wasn’t enough to test Pakistan. They went on to win their first major cricket title since winning the 1992 World Cup. Sri Lanka’s chance would come a few years later.