The Hindu : Walk in the park for Sri Lanka

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 20, 2003

Sport

Sport - World Cup

Walk in the park for Sri Lanka

PAARL Feb. 19. Sri Lanka bowled out Canada for a record low 36 and cantered to a nine-wicket win in just 28 balls in a World Cup match that lasted just 105 minutes on Wednesday.

Sri Lanka scored 37 for the loss of skipper Sanath Jayasuriya's wicket as Marvan Atapattu, 24 not out, and Kumar Sangakkara, four not out, scored the runs in 4.4 overs. They hit six fours between them against the demoralised Canadians.

It was the second quickest finish in the history of one-day cricket — 143 balls — behind the 120 balls Sri Lanka took to beat Zimbabwe after bowling out the southern African side for the previous lowest 38 runs.

Sri Lanka's new ball attack of Chaminda Vaas (three for 15), Prabath Nissanka (four for 12) and Dilhara Fernando (two for 4) took just 18.4 overs to rout the Canadian batting after Jayasuriya won the toss.

Sri Lanka now owns the best two bowling performances in one-day cricket while Canada the worse two batting performances at the World Cup.

Man-of-the-match Nissanka began the slaughter with the wicket of the in-form John Davison in the second over. Vaas and Nissanka missed out on hat-tricks as the Canadians capitulated against some sustained seam and swing bowling.

Sri Lanka remains unbeaten after starting with wins over New Zealand and Bangladesh. It heads to Nairobi to play Kenya on Monday before the crunch matches against the West Indies and South Africa.

``We had to get our net run-rate up,'' said Jayasuriya, and added he was not worried about his middle-order not getting enough exposure.

Sri Lanka has lost only nine wickets in three matches and seven of them in the opener against New Zealand.

``We wanted to win the matches as quickly as possible. The middle-order is lacking in exposure but we've got enough time to practice and make up for it.''

Jayasuriya said he was surprised the way the Canadians succumbed to his side's three-pronged pace attack.

``I didn't expect to knock them over that soon. It wasn't a bad wicket. Nissanka in particular bowled wicket-to-wicket and got the reward.''

Jayasuriya said teams like Canada, Namibia and Netherlands must play in the World Cup to get the necessary exposure and experience.

So far the associate member countries have made up the numbers and failed to compete against the Test-playing nations although Canada managed to upset Bangladesh.

Skipper Joe Harris said his side's main aim was to remain competitive against the Test-countries and post challenging totals and defend well.

``We have to be realistic,'' Harris said. ``It's a game of cricket. When the Test nations get bowled out for 40s, we shouldn't be ashamed of ourselves.

``It is a setback and didn't expect to get bowled out so quickly. We got ourselves out. We're not professional cricketers. We target teams that we can beat.

``We still have goals and objectives and our intentions are to meet them in the remaining matches.''

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