By Hilal Suhaib | March 17, 2012
On March 17, 1996 Arjuna Ranatunga's men changed the face of ODI cricket forever. AFP PHOTO/Saeed KHAN.
The ODI game has seen numerous transformations over the years but none more important that the one it took back on March 17, 1996. If Kerry Packer revolutionised the game in the ‘70s by introducing coloured clothing, matches played at night and the introduction of the white ball; the sport’s minnows at the time Sri Lanka re-branded it in 1996 for audiences of the next generation and beyond.
In 1996, Sri Lanka were a team with potential but very few expected them to win the World Cup. How they went about it has set the benchmark for all teams for years to come.
The tournament was marred with controversy when Australia and West Indies refused to tour the island for their group matches after the Tamil Tigers bombed the Central Bank in Colombo - 50 people died and more than 1500 suffered serious injuries. Understandably, the Aussies and the West Indians feared for their lives, which forced them to forfeit their matches in Sri Lanka.
Thanks to the two forfeited matches, Sri Lanka had already qualified for the quarter-finals before playing a single match and were just three wins away from the coveted trophy, before even a ball was bowled in the tournament.
In their opening game, Sri Lanka restricted Zimbabwe to 228/6 in 50 overs. While it may appear to be a low score according to today’s standards, a run rate of 4.56 was an acceptable one at the time. Sri Lanka reached their target in 37 overs at a run rate of 6.18, despite losing both their openers for cheap. The team strategy was to attack right from the onset. If their dashing openers failed, others would continue with the onslaught.
That’s what set Sri Lanka apart from the rest of the cricketing world that year. It wasn’t the fact that Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana were slamming everything around from the start – that had been done before. Sri Lanka revolutionised the ODI game by giving its entire top order the freedom to attack the new ball in the first 15 overs.
When
Kaluwitharana and Jayasuriya failed, Aravinda de Silva and Asanka
Gurussingha carried on the relentless attack, piling on pressure on the
opposition’s bowlers. AFP PHOTO/SENA VIDANAGAMA.When teams
were content scoring 60 runs against the moving new ball in the first
15 overs, Sri Lanka targeted 100 and beyond. They surpassed 100 runs in
the first 15 overs on three occasions in that tournament. England
skipper Michael Atherton referred to it as “a spectacular way to fly”,
after Arjuna Ranatunga’s men blew his side away during their
quarter-final encounter in Faisalabad.When Kaluwitharana and Jayasuriya failed, Aravinda de Silva and Asanka Gurusinha carried on the relentless attack, piling on pressure on the opposition’s bowlers. While many bowlers suffered at the hands of the Sri Lankans in that World Cup, none suffered a more horrible fate than India’s opening bowler Manoj Prabhakar.
Prabhakar was a key element in India’s Test and ODI side in the ‘90s; skilled enough to open batting with Sachin Tendulkar and open the bowling. He was fast creating a name for himself as one of India’s finest all-rounders of all-time until he found himself in the way of a rampaging Sri Lanka.
Prabhakar’s career ended at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi on March 2, 1996. When the 24th match of the 1996 World Cup was over, Sri Lankan batsmen had plundered 47 runs off just four Prabhakar-overs. The right arm fast-medium bowler resorted to bowling off-spinners in hopes of salvaging some pride.
Others too suffered at the hands of the Sri Lankans. Australia’s Shane Warne finished the World Cup final wicket-less and with the most expensive figures in the match (0/58 in 10 overs). Rajab Ali of Kenya was taken for 67 runs in his six overs in a group stage match – he was on track to concede more than 100 runs had he completed his quota. English all-rounder Phil DeFreitas was carted to all parts and was taken out of the attack after just 3.4 overs. He had conceded 10.36 runs per over.
Sri Lanka came two runs short of the 400-run mark when they made 398/5 in their 50 overs against Kenya in the 28th match of the tournament. Not until 2006, when Australia and South Africa met in Johannesburg did a team manage to better the ’96 world champions’ effort and cross the 400 barrier.
When Ranatunga’s men met England in the first quarter-final of the tournament, the English had never been knocked out of the competition before the semi-final stage in all previous World Cups. A mind-numbing assault from Jayasuriya, coupled with the brilliance of Sri Lanka’s middle order batsmen, saw them surpass England’s total of 235/8 with relative ease. It was the first time England had failed to qualify for a semi-final of a World Cup and the first time Sri Lanka had qualified for one.
As the New York Times put it,
On the field, as off, the championship made clear that England's game has migrated, and metamorphosed decisively along the way. As if to underline the point, the English team departed the championship early, humiliated in a quarterfinal by Sri Lanka, a team that English overlords of the game kept out of top-level cricket until a few years ago.Sri Lanka's semi-final batting performance further showed the efficacy of Sri Lanka’s new strategy. India thought they had shot down the Jayasuriya-Kaluwitharana show and with it Sri Lanka’s ability to attack with the bat, when both openers were dismissed in the first over. Enter Aravinda de Silva. De Silva’s 47-ball 66 after Jayasuriya, Kaluwitharana and Gurusinha departed cheaply for 1, 0 and 1, was a counter-attack par excellence. It told the Indians that their work was far from done – this team was not reliant on the heroics of just one or two individuals. When De Silva finally fell, Sri Lanka were still in a precarious position at 85/4. But they had with them experienced batsmen in their middle order who could steady the ship in a conventional manner when the top-order failed.
With skipper Ranatunga, Roshan Mahanama, Hashan Tillakaratne, along with Chaminda Vaas and Kumar Dharmasena down the order, Sri Lanka batted deep. Ranatunga was so confident that his side could chase down any score, that pitch or atmospheric conditions were of no concern to him. If he won the toss, he was going to put the opposition into bat.
The final against Australia followed a similar script. With the early demise of Kaluwitharana and Jayasuriya, it was up to Gurusinha and De Silva to counter-attack and score as many runs as possible in the first 15 overs. They did. De Silva carried on becoming only the third player to score a century in a World Cup final.
“For a country that until before the tournament was regarded as an international makeweight, victory completed a massive leap in status,” Adam Szreter wrote the following morning for the British newspaper The Independent.
Although they co-hosted the tournament with India and Pakistan, the odds against Sri Lanka winning were as high as 33-1 a few months ago.Cricket changed that day. No longer was it acceptable to score at four runs an over until the shine wore off the new ball. Other teams had to adapt, giving birth to ferocious strikers opening the innings when previously their services were only required for the final 10 overs.
It was a victory for the attacking, imaginative cricket that marked Sri Lanka's performances at every stage of the tournament.
© Island Cricket
No comments:
Post a Comment