Sri Lanka dare not to overstep

Well if one side of the incident where a Sri Lankan team bus gets targeted by terrorists on March 1^st 2009 makes us feel insecure, sometimes the same thing makes us laugh for the Sri Lankan team being so stupid to tour the trouble torn nation. No doubt that the match was heding towards a thrilling finish before the unexpected happened. This was one such situation where a match happened to be abandoned not due to rain or bad weather but due to terror attacks. The overall blame and responsibility totally lied on the Sri Lankan team for reasons mentioned above.

There was absolutely no reason not only for Sri Lanka but for anybody who is scheduled to play in Pakistan at that time when the country was fresh from major terror attacks and warnings regarding the same. That was the time when all major cricketing nations pulled themselves back from their tours of Pakistan that included the likes of Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, England and the West Indies. It was India who were about to tour Pakistan and after the Mumbai attacks took place, India became the 6^th country to join the elite list who didn't want to risk their lives.

It was more than one year from the date the attack on the Sri Lankan team bus took place that all the aforementioned nations canceled their tour to Pakistan that Pakistan had stopped hosting cricket on its soil. That is one such record that only Pakistan alone can boast of. Of course, India's reason not to tour Pakistan was rivalry between the countries rather than security concerns in Pakistan. It was in that tour that India was replaced by Sri Lanka and the unexpected expected took place at Lahore. Likewise, there has been egg throwing incidents in Australia when Muttiah Muralitharan happened to be a victim.

But, that could have been forgiven and so would have been the LTTE blast near the team hotel when a triangular series involving Sri Lanka, India and South Africa was scheduled to take place. And, two years after the incident has taken place, once again concerns are raised regarding the security situation in Pakistan by the same team that witnessed live horror then. If anybody can go through the latest news about Pakistan, the Sri Lankan team can look no further before deciding whether to or not to tour Pakistan. May be, if they do so, the players can never be given another chance to think.

Long gaps in world cups

I just happened to come across a JMF Bloogger before I could point out long gaps in cricket world cups wherein a team has not won a single match against a particular opposition or has been a long time since a team has had an upset in a world cup. A couple of Saturdays before, Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by 11 runs, which was Pakistan's 8th victory over the island nation in the history of a world cup keeping the world T20 apart. Sri Lanka was awarded the test status in 1983, partially considering their win over India in a prudential cup.

Matches between Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been played in 1975, 1983, 1987,1992 and 2011 offlate with Pakistan meeting Sri Lanka twice in 1987 and 1983. Viewers had to wait for 5 world cup to see a Pakistan-Sri Lanka match which was last played in 1992. Similar results include India's victory over Pakistan in all four meetings since 1992 till 2003. And then, India's last win over Australia was in 1987 when the Mohammed Azharuddin led team beat Australia by 56 runs at Delhi. Since then, India have lost 5 matches to Australia with two in the 2003 edition and one each in the others.

The best part being that in their 1^st encounter, Australia reduced India to their lowest world cup total of 125 and in the other Australia notched their highest world cup total against India or India conceded the most number of runs in a world cup when Australia ended their innings at 359/2 at Centurion. In 2007, neither did India face Pakistan nor did they play Australia. As mentioned in one of my earlier posts recently, New Zealand needed 28 years to find a win against Pakistan in a world cup match. The Kiwis had last won a match against Pakistan in 1975.

Of course, matches between a test playing nation and a non test playing nation cannot prove any different results unless the strong team underestimates the weaker opposition. New Zealand last won a game against Sri Lanka in 1992 when the Martin Crowe led New Zealand chased down the Sri Lankans' total of 207 with 6 wickets to spare. New Zealand since then have lost to Sri Lanka in 2003 and twice in 2007 with Jayawardane's captain's knock being the famous one in the semi finals of the 2007 world cup. Prior to 1992, Sri Lanka's games are as good as those involving today's Bangladesh or Zimbabwe.