{"id":66911,"date":"2017-06-13T15:10:52","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T22:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=66911"},"modified":"2017-06-13T15:10:52","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T22:10:52","slug":"senior-players-let-the-side-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/06\/13\/senior-players-let-the-side-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior Players Let The Side Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Top Spin By Suni<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><strong>It was a case of wasted efforts squandered by the most experienced players where the juniors shone and Malinga was at one of his his arguably best showings.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The shame of it all is Sri Lanka almost made it to the next round and all the good efforts of those who got them to the semis came to no avail as pathetic fielding, overthrows and an inane approach towards going for the jugular saw\u00a0 a reverse of roles where the Pakistanis capitalised and romped home leaving the Lankans with their tails between their legs. Angelo Mathews looked crestfallen with the rest of the team who had only themselves to blame although once again he had proved his role as a valiant Lankan captain where only a few lapses by an errant few saw the game slip through his fingers in a manner of speaking and totally beyond his control.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>There probably was never\u00a0 more enthusiasm and interest in a game where the Lankans after thrashing India comprehensively despite the loss to South Africa were expected to walk over the Pakistanis but what happened at Cardiff at a stage where Sri Lanka were poised for a historic win suddenly changed and was beyond belief for those watching.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Two simple missed catches which could have turned the tide of the game in favour of Sri Lanka were the most crucial, amongst others where Thisara Perera\u00a0 and Seekuge Prassanna the two main culprits who let the Pakistanis, trembling in anticipation of defeat, off the hook as the Lankans faltered and failed to the abject horror of the millions watching on site and around the globe where it was all over bar the shouting.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>But then it all adds up to the glorious uncertainties of the game with the celebrative Pakistanis in ecstacy and the Lankans in agony of a defeat that never should have been.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Taking nothing away from the Pakistanis who toiled and sweated for this famous win, they restricted Sri Lanka to a meagre total by\u00a0 today&#8217;s limited over standards where once again pathetic run outs were the order of the day as the Pakistanis fielded brillianrly, threw down wickets unerringly and their Captain Safraz surely a role model with his exemplary leadership and batting whose team in the end snatched the spoils of victory from the jaws of defeat. Sri Lanka&#8217;s total in the end became daunting as Lasith Malinga the evergreen Lankan hero led the Lankan charge and almost turned tables on the Pakistanis but almost but not quite must be the pun\u00a0 here as despair overcame the Lankans in the end.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>It was surely a champagne game of cricket in a beautiful\u00a0 Welsh setting and a madding crowd that was never far from anticipation for their team as the game came to its stunning climax.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Top Spin By Suni<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>June 13thn 3017<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top Spin By Suni It was a case of wasted efforts squandered by the most experienced players where the juniors shone and Malinga was at one of his his arguably best showings. The shame of it all is Sri Lanka almost made it to the next round and all the good efforts of those who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunil-kumar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66911","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=66911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}