{"id":42106,"date":"2015-03-08T07:27:15","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T14:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=42106"},"modified":"2015-03-08T07:27:15","modified_gmt":"2015-03-08T14:27:15","slug":"sri-lanka-vs-australia-game-of-thrones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/03\/08\/sri-lanka-vs-australia-game-of-thrones\/","title":{"rendered":"SRI LANKA Vs AUSTRALIA – GAME OF THRONES"},"content":{"rendered":"

By M D P DISSANAYAKE<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

With 6 points on the table, Sri Lanka’s chances of advancing to the quarter finals\u00a0 and beyond will be a great reward to\u00a0\u00a0 Mahela, Dilshan, Kumar and Skipper Angelow Matthews, Coaches Marvan Atapattu, Chaminda Vass and all the supporting staff.<\/p>\n

In Australia, wide publicity is being given to the fact that both Rangana Herath and Dimuth Karunaratne’s\u00a0 injuries, in a somewhat compassionate but tongue in cheek comments<\/strong>.\u00a0 The commentators are arguing that the absence of Rangana Herath will hurt Sri Lanka, especially at the Sydney Cricket Ground which favours spinners with\u00a0 odds on favourite for Aussies on 7 March, 12.30 pm was $2.60 to $1.40.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is in spite of the fact that Sri Lanka is currently one point ahead of Australia.<\/p>\n

CAUTION FOR SRI LANKA:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thus far,\u00a0 Dilshan, Lahiru and Kumar have put runs on the board.\u00a0 Most of the other batsmen did not get a chance to bat\u00a0 as the top order batsmen did the job for Sri Lanka.\u00a0 This was similar to the days of 1990’s\u00a0 where Romesh Kaluvitharana and Sanath Jayasuriya dominated the score board. The middle order batsmen will have a splendid opportunity tomorrow to come to the Party.\u00a0\u00a0 Mahela, Angelow, Dinesh Chandimal or Upul Thanranga, Tissara\u00a0\u00a0 should roll their sleeves up to face the challenge, in the event Dilshan, Lahiru and Kumar fails.\u00a0\u00a0 In\u00a0 the Bowling Department, Sri Lankan’s are multi talented.\u00a0 Front line seamers Lasith, Suranga will be supplemented by medium pace attack of Angelow and Tissara.\u00a0 Nuwan Kulasekera has in depth experience in Aussie soil, his presence will be an asset.<\/p>\n

Dilshan is proving to be a great asset for Sri Lankan Cricket, his versatility in all round performance has been proved. Lahiru Thirimanna has displayed his right arm medium fast bowling\u00a0 in\u00a0 surprising cirumstances in some of the matches as a part time spinner.\u00a0 Sekkuge Prasanna\u00a0\u00a0 is a skillful young man with\u00a0\u00a0 leg break bowling\u00a0 and a big hitter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

FEAR IN AUSTRALIAN TEAM:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michael Clarke will play tomorrow, his on and off presence is creating frustration amongst the regular players. Steve Smith apparently not energised under Michael Clarke’s captaincy.\u00a0 The Coach Darrel Lehmann had his comments reserved on Michael Clarke, preferring the regular team.<\/p>\n

Australia fear Sri Lanka most than any other cricketing nation<\/strong>.\u00a0 They feel they were insulted in 1996 by Arjuna Ranatunga lead team in winning the World Cup.\u00a0 If they were beaten by England, Pakistan, India, West Indies\u00a0 or South Africa, there would have been no on going pain.\u00a0\u00a0 They felt threatened by\u00a0 Sri Lanka in 2007, under the Captaincy of Mahela Jayawardene, where Australia won the final by 53 runs\u00a0\u00a0 with the help of squash ball fiasco of Adam Gilcrest.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sri Lankan have inflicted bruises all over Australian Cricketing Team.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In yesterday’s Million Dollar Minute chanell 7, there was a question, which was ” Who was the second <\/strong>highest test cricket wicket taker in the world”, with the obvious answer was Shane Warne.\u00a0 Why didn’t they ask the question that they did not ask?\u00a0\u00a0 It should have been ”\u00a0 Who was the highest<\/strong> test cricket wicket taker in the world?”, with the answer of Great Muttiah Muralidaran.<\/p>\n

WINNING STRATEGY\u00a0 IN SYDNEY WICKET:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my opinion, (I may be wrong), Sri Lanka should bat second, if the toss favours us in that direction.\u00a0 Aussies are under pressure, one point behind the Arch Enemy Sri Lanka ( England is no longer the Arch Enemy of Aussies in Cricket).<\/p>\n

In most of the recent world cup matches of 2015,\u00a0 the minimum\u00a0 bench mark was 300 plus.\u00a0 Sri Lankan team\u00a0 peaking at the right time.\u00a0 all players are making a genuine mark of their contribution.<\/p>\n

LTTE RUMP PROTEST IN SYDNEY:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike in previous occasions, the LTTE\u00a0 rump and Diaspora in Sydney most likely to remain silent during the match.\u00a0 They are now happy as their Guardian is in charge of the Temple Trees of Sri lanka.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MAHELA’S DAY:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Modern day icon of Sri Lanka Cricket, Mahela Jayawardena need to raise the World Cup 2015 which he missed by a squash ball.<\/p>\n

The Game of Cricket is the best Trophy\u00a0 to supplement the Game of Thrones.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By M D P DISSANAYAKE With 6 points on the table, Sri Lanka’s chances of advancing to the quarter finals\u00a0 and beyond will be a great reward to\u00a0\u00a0 Mahela, Dilshan, Kumar and Skipper Angelow Matthews, Coaches Marvan Atapattu, Chaminda Vass and all the supporting staff. In Australia, wide publicity is being given to the fact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-m-d-p-dissanayake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}