One one things

After the fun of ‘96, the WC of 1999 was a big disappointment. It was a bad time bc it was smack bang during OL time, and that’s the one exam where everyone gets all excited and works hard, it’s only afterwards that you think, eh that was a bit of a waste of time. I don’t even remember my OL subjects anymore. But from the very first game of the 1999 edition, it just didn’t seem auspicious. It was a gloomy start, it looked cold and just not the party atmosphere world cups should be played in. Anyway, it wasn’t a great world cup at all other than the two Australia vs. South Africa games. Our own team wasn’t in great shape and we played poorly for most of the tournament. I couldn’t watch most of the matches due to study/school commitments, this wasn’t always a bad thing, specially our game against India. I didn’t even watch most of the final, which was fittingly one sided to round off a poor world cup.

2003 was a different matter. I was in uni at the time in England and naturally none of the games were shown on terrestial TV. S and I found an Australian pub near the covered market where they showed all the games live. The pub is called Bar Oz and is still around. The first match SL played was against New Zealand, and Sanath started things off in style with a super 100, holding the innings together with the surprise package that was Hashan Tillekaratne. The crowd at the Oz was small, but the two of us were easily the only Sri Lanka supporters. We then bowled superbly taking early wickets but Styris kept the Kiwis in the hunt all along with a massive hundred. But the spinners kept chipping away at the wickets and the boys produced a typical subcontinental spinner’s strangle even though the game was in south Africa. There was one kiwi supporter who kept chatting with me through the game, we had an enjoyable banter, and it helped that the game was close so we took turns at jabbing one another. The aussies in the Oz got behind NZ as well, but they didn’t really engage me at all, I guess it would have been different had the Aussies been playing. Styris finally fell going for one too many sixers and the game was ours. I didn’t even see our next two games bc they were over before I could make my way down to the Oz. The canada game was over before I woke up. I didn’t see the Kenya game either, damn good thing too.

The next big game was against the Windies. It was a day nighter so it started quite late in the piece. The Oz was quite full with the evening crowd but most ppl weren’t there to watch the cricket. We batted first again and didn’t do a great deal with the bat, Sanath scored again but the nature of the wicket suggested that the 220 odd we got may just be defendable. Vaas swung it all over the shop and we had a host of early wickets, and when Lara went we really were in business. I tend to get a bit dramatic when watching the boys play, when i’m at home i can get away with the big appeals and uninhibited advice on running between the wickets, but its more of an issue in public. With time the ppl at the Oz got used to me getting out of my chair and yelling at the tv, well at least they stopped turning around and staring after the initial surprise. The big moment in the match was when Dilhara nailed Sarwan with a bouncer and jammed his ear-ring against the helmet causing a lot of pain and a bit of blood. Hooper was LBW first ball to a slower one and I felt we had the game in the bag. Annoyingly towards the late middle Sarwan came back to bat, and even more annoyingly the Oz switched to the football. We rushed over to the Teddy JCR and were delighted to see some fellows watching the game. Sarwan was keeping the Windies in the game with some calculated hitting. Just when the game reached its climax some wanker stood up and changed the channel to Neighbours, and everyone else approved of the move. Bloody neutrals. Bloody soap operas and the Brit’s obsession with them. We scurried off to S’s room to catch the last bits on cricinfo. It was a cliff-hanger of a game. Sarwan kept swatting sixers over midwicket off the spinners but he was running out of partners. Murali bowled an amazing penultimate over, and in the end Pulasthi Gunaratne kept it tight enough to win it by 6 in the final over. I was annoyed that we had to resort to following the last 5 overs on cricinfo, but we were through to the next round, and that was what mattered.

The next game against South Africa was one of my most memorable cricket watching experiences. S had an essay so I went up to the Oz alone. I had a tute in the late morning so I rocked up about 20 overs into our innings. When I walked in there were about 3 tables pulled together with ppl using up pretty much all the room around the tables. I desparately looked for a seat and luckily spotted one bang in the middle of the group. Without thinking twice or asking anyone I walked up there, half an eye on the tele and sat myself down. The chaps either side of me looked perplexed. I grinned. It was then that I realised that I was right in the middle of a South African troupe. They were two different groups of supporters, originating from different parts of South Africa, but it was very evident that there was only one person rooting for Sri Lanka at the Oz. Marvan was batting superbly, driving beautifully on the up, cutting and flicking with ease, he looked right at home with the ball coming onto the bat. Aravinda gave him good support with his last big world cup innings. He hooked Makhaya for a great six and then flicked Andrew Hall over midwicket for another and I stood up and cheered like mad, it didn’t matter who was surrounding me. The Saffers were thoroughly amused by me, first they couldn’t pronounce my name so they called me Sri and then Dish. After a couple of attempts at correcting them I shrugged my shoulders and answered to Dish. One of them said that Australians would never have tolerated someone from the other camp sitting amongst them, but that he respects me for having the balls to come right into the lions den to cheer my team. To be honest if I had known it was 3 tables full of saffer supporters I would most probably have pulled a chair from somewhere else and sat down in a corner.

There was some great fun that day, I did my best to stand up to their sledging and I suspect i did a decent job of it. By the time the 2nd innings began the Saffers were quite high and became increasingly vocal. Each boundary by Smith and Gibbs brought about huge cheers, and I felt like a very small voice amongst a sea of springboks. So when Smith mistimed a pull off Aravinda down the throat of deep midwicket, I produced my loudest and most demonstrative cheer of the day. The Saffers continued to bat well but the spinners kept chipping away at the wickets. The South Africans at the Oz became increasingly vociferous as well, they were literally in my face with their support for their team, the smell of beer was strong. I didn’t back down. With each wicket I’d get out of my chair and punch the air and yell something in Sinhalese or English depending on how much I wanted to be understood. When Murali bowled Gibbs on the sweep the game swung towards Sri Lanka. Unfortunately at this point the noise was such that I couldn’t hear Sanga’s legendary sledging of Pollock. “Oh, here comes the skipper, oh the weight of all these expectations, he’s going to let his whole country down if he fails, 42 million ppl depending on you, Shaun!” Boucher kept the flag up, chipping runs as he usually does, but when Pollock was dismissed the guys at the Oz got increasingly antsy. I was told to shut up a couple of times when my cheering became too loud for their liking, but I wasn’t about to oblige. Klusener really struggled in his first few balls and couldn’t get it past the square. That helped Sri Lanka, and with the rains coming nobody really knew what was required. Boucher smashed Murali over midwicket for 6 and punched the air as he jogged to the non-strikers end. He defended the final ball of the over and happily strode away from the wicket as the teams left the field for rain. It was then that the Duckworth Lewis figures came on the screen and it was apparent that South Africa hadn’t done enough to win. Everyone at the Oz was pissed off royally. I knew it was time to shut up. One guy was convinced it was fixed. “I wouldn’t be surprised man if Allan Donald walks up and gives Boucher a hug (after Donald’s cock up in the ‘99 WC semi final), and then Hansie’s ghost comes and starts dancing on the pitch. Fucking joke.” They were really angry so I didn’t want to stay there and celebrate, I quietly left after shaking hands and consoling the fellows immediately next to me.

The super 6’s didn’t go too well for us, we lost to the Aussies and to India before beating Zimbabwe to reach the semis. I only watched the Aussie game, and while we got thrashed it was another fun cricket watching experience. There was no way I was going to the Oz to watch a SL v Aussie game, so instead I headed up to the Jamaican pub up on Cowley Road. It was early morning, 8am, so I was surprised to find them open. I was a bit nervous about going there after Dilhara had felled Sarwan in the previous game, anyway I plucked up my courage and walked in. I spent the whole day there, and the Jamaican owner, a legend in Cowley, was thoroughly welcoming and chatted with me all the time about cricket, about how he moved to Oxford from the West Indies and life in the two contrasting countries, we shared a distaste for Australian cricket, “They abuuuse us mun, them Australians, they always abusing us men of colour. Racism mun, it has no place on that field.” His wife made me some Jerk chicken for lunch and it didn’t even matter that we were being thrashed in the match. S joined me after lunch but by then the game was almost up. Aravinda played some lovely shots and showed that age is no barrier to class. We went down big time, but I left the Jamaican pub thoroughly satisfied with the day. I was in Oxford about a year and a half ago for my graduation, and I tried to go to the Jamaican restaurant one night but it was full, but through the window I saw the owner and we smiled and waved at one another, acknowledging a shared memory.

We played well in the semis, particularly in the field. The batting was undone by some fiery stuff by Brett Lee. He cleaned up Marvan with the fastest ball i’ve ever seen. A couple of balls later he bowled an identicle delivery, at almost the same pace at Sanath, but he smacked him over square leg for a mighty six. But it wasn’t to be, our batsman simply were not good enough, that said most batsman would not have stood up to that test. The final was again thoroughly one sided as Australia creamed the Indians with Ponting stamping his class. The 2003 world cup was a bit of an enigma. Nobody would have guessed the semi finalists before the tournament began, and while Sri Lanka did well in the first round, they did bugger all in the super sixers and yet made the semis. It obviously wasn’t our best world cup, but it was one of my better cricket watching experiences. Heres to a good one in 2007.

P.s.
Herschelle Gibbs has just plundered six 6’s off one Van Bunge over. Minnow bashing at its best.