Sri Lanka Lost the match, but it was a real thrilling batting display by Shahid Afridi after a long time. Despite the fact that, his innings took the match away from Sri Lanka, I really enjoyed his spirit.
At one point, Sri Lanka was slowly taking control of the match, by strangling the Pakistani run rate, but all of a sudden Afridi came out of his crease repeatedly, and hit 32 runs in a one over by Malinga Bandara. Four off the first ball, followed by another in the second ball. Then Afridi thought fours are not big enough. He jumped out of his crease like a tiger approaching his pray, and hit Malinga Bandara for 4 consecutive sixes off next 4 balls of the over. Just brilliant as that!
Sri Lankan wicket keeper, Prasanna Jayawardena was acting as a dummy behind the wicket. With Afridi aggressively coming out of the crease, it was very predictable he’s going to do it for every next ball. But Prasanna, as the wicket keeper never communicated with the bowler, and formulate a plan to get his out stumped.
Had it been Murali and sangakkara combination, or Warne and Healy (Or Warne and Gilchrist) combination, would they allow a batsman to come out of the crease for 6 or 8 balls in a row like that?
We’ve seen in many occasions, when batsmen coming out of crease so attackingly, Sanga walks into Murali and have a little word. (Or else, scream at Murali in Sinhala “Moo eliyata enawa wedi… Kakula paththen dala balamu”). 99% of the time we see the batsman get out stumped after such a conversation between Murali and Sanga. But Bandara and Prasanna, never worried to coordinate like that.
I know we can’t blame them for that, because experience plays a major roll their. They would have taken this as a learning opportunity. Prasanna will have to keep wicket for Murali in test matches for a foreseeable future, so he has to get his approach to the game corrected as soon as possible. We know in modern day cricket, wicket keepers play a main roll in keeping the momentum of the fielding team, and strategizing the bowling effort. But we never saw that contribution from Prasanna yesterday.
All in all, it was very evident that we missed Murali and Sanga a lot. Loosing 4 player from the World Cup squad, would have affected the Sri Lankan performance, but the whole idea of this tournament was to bring out the young players. So, let’s hope even if we lost the match, young players gathered some experience. But the other thing our players have to keep in mind is, “you promised to win this tournament for Moody”.
All credit to Afridi and Pakistan. It was a great come back after getting out of the world cup so early.
At one point, Sri Lanka was slowly taking control of the match, by strangling the Pakistani run rate, but all of a sudden Afridi came out of his crease repeatedly, and hit 32 runs in a one over by Malinga Bandara. Four off the first ball, followed by another in the second ball. Then Afridi thought fours are not big enough. He jumped out of his crease like a tiger approaching his pray, and hit Malinga Bandara for 4 consecutive sixes off next 4 balls of the over. Just brilliant as that!
Sri Lankan wicket keeper, Prasanna Jayawardena was acting as a dummy behind the wicket. With Afridi aggressively coming out of the crease, it was very predictable he’s going to do it for every next ball. But Prasanna, as the wicket keeper never communicated with the bowler, and formulate a plan to get his out stumped.
Had it been Murali and sangakkara combination, or Warne and Healy (Or Warne and Gilchrist) combination, would they allow a batsman to come out of the crease for 6 or 8 balls in a row like that?
We’ve seen in many occasions, when batsmen coming out of crease so attackingly, Sanga walks into Murali and have a little word. (Or else, scream at Murali in Sinhala “Moo eliyata enawa wedi… Kakula paththen dala balamu”). 99% of the time we see the batsman get out stumped after such a conversation between Murali and Sanga. But Bandara and Prasanna, never worried to coordinate like that.
I know we can’t blame them for that, because experience plays a major roll their. They would have taken this as a learning opportunity. Prasanna will have to keep wicket for Murali in test matches for a foreseeable future, so he has to get his approach to the game corrected as soon as possible. We know in modern day cricket, wicket keepers play a main roll in keeping the momentum of the fielding team, and strategizing the bowling effort. But we never saw that contribution from Prasanna yesterday.
All in all, it was very evident that we missed Murali and Sanga a lot. Loosing 4 player from the World Cup squad, would have affected the Sri Lankan performance, but the whole idea of this tournament was to bring out the young players. So, let’s hope even if we lost the match, young players gathered some experience. But the other thing our players have to keep in mind is, “you promised to win this tournament for Moody”.
All credit to Afridi and Pakistan. It was a great come back after getting out of the world cup so early.
