Our Champions Trophy
Sri Lanka probably got kicked out of the Champions Trophy last night, bad form. What pissed me off was reading the reactions of the press. The Daily Mirror screams out “Sri Lanka exposed in night of shame” The Island gives no analysis of substance. Both examples of pretty poor journalism. The Mirror deserves special comment, the article by Callistus Davy is one of the worst cases of knee-jerk, subjective, uninformed writing that I have ever read.
So last night the Saffers played some excellent cricket in the 2nd innings, Polly and Ntini bowled the perfect length and line to two in-form openers, completely choking them to force the errors. The ball seamed around more than we have ever seen throughout the tournament, it was more like a Headingly green top than a subcontinental slow turner. Our guys were just caught off-guard. For instance the ball that bowled Marvan, any player who knows where his off stump is in the sub-continent would leave that alone. Sure they should have adjusted to the conditions, but none of them (bar Tharanga) got a chance to adjust, they were dismissed before they even got going. Mahela gave us a sniff but when he got run out we couldn’t do much else. We just need to put our hand up and say we were done in by a team playing excellent cricket on a night where conditions were ideal for their attack, and in a format like the Champs trophy, every loss counts. I think our real mess up was against Pakistan, on that day we had the game in our hands and gave it away with the bat. That was a 275-300 wicket, and we fell short due to careless batting, nobody else to blame but us. That was just a bad day in the office, and I think we’re allowed that given how well the boys have played of late.
So all this nonsense about “night of shame” is totally uncalled for. It reminds me of UK tabloid journalism, and that’s a tag that few would aspire to. The team remains very solid, both on paper and in practice. Mahela’s captaincy record has been excellent, and our players have performed consistently throughout 2006. They remain a force for the World Cup. Losing one game to a team playing super cricket in conditions that suited them does not change any of this.
Let’s take a look at Davy’s article.
“Sri Lanka were disgraced and humiliated” No, losing to a side playing top notch cricket is not a disgrace or humiliation.
“..with no answer to the genuine pace of South Africa’s heavyweights” Polly, Nel, Kallis and Kemp bowl genuine pace? They bowled line and length and waited for the wicket to play tricks.
“There was no one who could have come in and broken the shackles” At 30-4 with the ball darting around like a hyperactive Chihuahua, I’d like to see who would dance down the track and loft Ntini over his head for 6. The best bet was to try and overcome the initial shock, consolidate until the dew came in and made bowling difficult.
Unfortunately we had lost too many wickets by then to do this.
“Sri Lanka had merely made up the numbers in the 10 nation tournament” If Australia loses to India and crashes out of the tournament this week, would they also be a team that just made up the numbers? Novice.
“Why skipper Jayawardena won the toss and chose to chase was hard to comprehend” Ok, I guess Davy has been watching everything but the cricket in this tournament. It’s a little something called dew. We rely on our spinners, with the dew our spinners would struggle. Did you watch the Pakistan game? My 10 year old nephew has a better understanding of the game than Callistus Davy.
I can’t believe they published that. The state of journalism in Sri Lanka is pretty sad in general, but this is a new low. The only good thing is I’m sure the players are used to this kind of knee jerk rabid reaction, and I hope they take no notice of it and just get on with their game. Losing the way we did yesterday was just part of the game, we didn’t play particularly bad cricket and South Africa played excellent cricket, there’s no shame in that. Well played Saffers.
