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Sports

England tour, Murali and the Australians
By S.R. Pathiravithana
Finally England's gruelling tour of Sri Lanka drew to an end after they had earned themselves an extra day of Christmas shopping in sunny Sri Lanka and face the music back home. However, as far as matches were concerned the tour contained one finished ODI, two washed out ODI's along with three finished Test matches, and the results of the finished games went to prove that the tourists had very limited ability cricket wise in spite of having back up forces who tried to demoralise the local enthusiasm with various pranks on and off the field.

As far as the results were concerned in the only ODI that was completed, Sri Lanka thrashed the day lights out of the hapless visitors under flood lights, and in the Test matches after managing to salvage two draws at Galle and Kandy, the whole English fighting spirit was submerged in the SSC pool after Sri Lanka inflicted an innings and 215 run defeat upon them in just four days. None of their acolytes were present at this juncture to save their skin.

In the first one day International played at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium, it happened so that England won the toss and elected to bat and did so for 46.1 overs and made 88 all out and the Sri Lankan openers Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana paid scant respect to England bowlers and overhauled their total in just 13.5 overs. Here, for Sri Lanka the men who did the damage were the ever green Chaminda Vaas along with two novices by the names of Nuwan Kulasekera and Dinusha Fernando-- an all medium pace attack.

A very significant factor in this game was that uralitharan bowled his quota of ten overs for 15 runs, but, took only one wicket and none of the England cricketers or past England cricketers who are now have turned journalists started sniveling about his action. They accepted defeat in a very English manner. This defeat was followed by two washouts. Sri Lanka ended the ODI series one up.

Barring at Rangiri Dambulla, the rains were following the visitors like their ray of good hope, and the first Test at Galle, dark clouds hung over the old Dutch Fort like a bad omen for Sri Lanka and intervened with the game whenever Sri Lanka did not want it to happen, but, the game went on when weather permitted.

Sri Lanka winning the toss elected to bat and made 331 in their first innings with Sanath Jayasuriya ( 45 ), Kumar Sangakkara ( 71 ) and Muttiah Muralitharan ( 38 ) making note worthy contributions. In reply England made 235 all out with Muralitharan taking 7 wickets for 46 runs. Sri Lanka batting for the second time made 225 with right hander Mahela Jayawardena coming back into his stride making 86 not out and also putting on a 46 runs for last wicket with Muttiah Muralitharan. England needing 323 to win limped back at the end of the fifth day at 210 for 9 thanks to badlight and umpires Dyrall Harper from Australia and Srinivasan Venkatraghavan from India.

In this game Muralitharan came back into the limelight with a haul of eleven wickets and the moaning Englishmen were at work. First it was the England chairman of selectors David Graveney who ordered his fast bowlers to go at Muralitharan's throat even before the match had ended. This was followed by former England captain Michael Atherton who no longer could keep hands in the pocket. Atherton too joined the band waggon and brought back the same old 'chucking' theory.

The second Test match was played at the Asgiriya Stadium, where the climate was kinder to the Englishmen. This Aleem Daar from Pakistan joined Harper in place of Venkat and the game got underway. Once again Sri Lanka winning the toss and batting first made 382 and 279 with T.M. Dilshan making a century and a half century in the two innings and Mahela Jayawardena too coming up with a good performance with the bat in both innings. England in a repeat of the first Test, hung on for dear life to save the Test, thanks to a fighting century by skipper Michael Vaughan and uninspiring leadership qualities of Lankan skipper Hashan Tillekeratne.

More than the result of the game what took precedence in this game was the Nassar-Murali issue. Not all Englishmen are one-sided. Writing on the issue Charlie Austin said : " According to Murali, it was a cheeky one-liner or a sharp-tounged barb- it was a foulmouthed attack upon his integrity as a player. Hussain was accused of calling him 'a ****ing cheat and a ****ing chucker' as he walked into the crease. Bizarrely, though, it's England's players who are burning inside with a sense of injustice. Sri Lanka have been accused of being squealers, and Murali is apparently a schoolboy snitch.

It was Murali's word against 11 tight-lipped English players, Lloyd, though, made it clear that he thought Hussain had muttered something nasty and warned that he would not tolerate any further such behaviour, from both sides, that ' threatened the integrity of the game'.

In conclusion Austin added " Rather than being ridiculed as a tell-tale, Murali should be lauded for standing up for himself and the game. There are few in world cricket that can match his unbridled passion and love for the game.

To be accused of being a cheat would have appalled him ( like it did to Michael Atherton during an altercation with Kumar Sangakkara during last tour). Sledging has never been a part of his game and he, quite justifiably, does not see why he should play according to other people's crass standards simply because other players have put up with obscenities before." By the time the third Test began the chucking issue had blown out of proportion with England paceman James Kirtly's action being questioned.

This time ICC was very quick to react and said all chuckers will be put under scrutiny and especially it will be the slow bowlers. Out in the middle umpire Steve Bucknor from the West Indies joined Aleem Daar and Daryll Harper who came into much controversy during his stay in Sri Lanka went back to his native land.

During this test which lasted for only four days England winning the toss for the second time on tour batted first and made 255 runs in their first innings. Sri Lanka in return made 628 for 8 declared with Thilan Samaraweera being forced to bat at number three after opener Marvan Atapattu tore his left hand webbing and regular number three batsman Sangakkara joined as Sanath Jayasuriya's opening partner.

Samaraweera took the opportunity with both hands and made a match winning knock of 142. Jayawardena continued his good form with 134. Once again Dilshan proved his worth with a contribution of 83 runs. Batting for the second time England lost their will to survive and were all out for 148 and Muttiah Muralitharan finished the series with 26 wickets.

For the Australians across the Indian Ocean who are now sulking after a rare home defeat at the hands of the other Asian giant India and are scheduled to tour Sri Lanka early next year, Murali's deeds was not good news. The Australian media remembers well their last tour to the tiny island ended in disaster with a 1-0 series defeat and they do not speak about it in their recent results.

To do their job they have now employed an Indian Murali hater. This man is a well known outspoken ( or is it that he speaks out of turn ) who once threatened to dump the Indian team in the sea when he was their coach and even was berated by their own Indians for once insulting the present Australian coach John Buchanan. He is non other than former Indian left arm orthodox spinner B.S. Bedi. Bedi who's latest achievement in cricket being sacked from the post of Ranji Trophy coach for Delhi took the opportunity to come back into the limelight again and called the champion Sri Lankan spinner a " A burglar, a thief, a dacoit".

The Australian media will not stop at this till their Lankan tour comes to an end. They will spend many more sleepless nights in planning on more monkey tricks on how to stop Muralitharan from overhauling their own spinner Shane Warne who will come back into cricket during the Lankan tour after his ban from cricket on the usage of banned steroids.

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