Alas! It was not the best welcome

It is great to be back in Australia after a lapse of a few weeks to do battle with the world champions after a tense test series. This time, the triangular will see neighbours India also in the fray, so with the world’s top team, the runner’s up at the World Cup and the only team to beat Australia in a recent test in the contest, it should be an exciting tournament.

Our arrival in Australia was not very exciting, though. We arrived at our Sydney Hotel at 8.30 in the morning after a tiresome flight only to find that rooms at our hotel were not immediately available, compelling us to lounge in the lobby for a good three hours-a far cry from the ‘garland of orchids’ welcome we accord cricketers visiting Sri Lanka!

Our first game of the tour however was a charity match in Canberra last Sunday which the boys used to get in some match practice before the tour proper. We scored in excess of 270 with Sanath excelling with the bat and Murali, Maharoof and myself grabbing two wickets each. It was a decent outing to acclimatise ourselves to the conditions Down Under.

On the day before the game against the Australian Prime Minister’s XI at Canberra, we were hosted for cocktails by the new Australian Premier Kevin Rudd, a charming man with a genuine love for the game and a different personality from his predecessor, John Howard. Rudd had a long and animated discussion with Murali where apparently Murali spoke of politics and Rudd spoke about cricket!

The game against the Premier’s XI provided us with valuable match practice as it included several potential Australian players. That we were able to win convincingly, bowling out our opponents for 152 was encouraging since many commented that no visiting team had beaten the Australian Premier’s XI for the past 15 years.

What caused a bit of concern was the batting where there was a wobble in the middle after Sanath’s dismissal. We should have knocked off the required runs for the loss of perhaps two or three wickets but finally Dilshan ensured that we got home with a typical knock of 74 in just 81 deliveries.

Dilshan was sent in as one down batsman to play the role of pinch hitter after we discussed this aspect of our game at a team meeting. He grabbed the opportunity and excelled in his new found role. We will seriously consider the pinch hitting option in the tournament and Dilshan, Chamara, Farveez or myself could be called upon to play that role, but it is a facet of our game that we will evaluate on a game by game basis.

Much has been said about our decision to come to Australia with only one spinner. But it is a game plan decided on after a lot of thought. On the one hand, the spinner we have is the best in world cricket. On the other hand we have in Sanath and Dilshan two very capable spinning all-rounders. Therefore, a second spinner was unlikely to have commanded a regular place in the team, had we accommodated one in our squad.

We have discussed our game plans and the boys are in good spirits. I was presented with a cake on my 34th birthday on the 27th with a lot of best wishes from my mates. The lads are training hard and raring to go on what will be the last triangular of this nature on Australian soil.

With some of the big name Aussies saying farewell to the game, the tournament will be wide open. We know India to be an extremely formidable side as they demonstrated in their test win over Australia so I feel that the teams arguably have equal strengths. When we were here last, we managed to reach the best of three finals and win the first final against Australia too and that has been our best performance to-date.

Australia will be vulnerable now that Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist have all announced their retirement. I for one was taken by surprise by Gilchrists’s decision. He looked in great touch –even though he had a few lapses in his wicket keeping-and seemed to have a few more years of cricket left in him but retirement is an intensely personal decision and I am sure he had his reasons for doing what he did.

We have not been affected by the controversy surrounding Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds. We as a team don’t indulge in sledging and we are a team that won the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ award recently for our sportsmanship. What has happened has happened now and our hope is that this type of issues will not mar our games.

Our next game is against a Tasmanian side in Hobart tomorrow. This would be our final warm up game before the tournament and the opportunity to sort out matters such as team selection before our first international against India at Brisbane. We will, of course, play hard and play to win. For those ‘seniors’ in the team for whom this could be their last tour Down Under, a fitting finale would be a victory in the tournament.