How the Sri Lanka Cricket Team Could Have Avoided A Four One Defeat At The Hands Of The Indians?

On February the 3rd 2009 at about 4pm (Sri Lanka Time), a friend sent me an sms asking, “What is happening to the match?” This was the time that Shewag and Uvaraj were taking the Sri Lankan bowlers apart in the 3rd day night match at the R.Premadasa Stadium. As I was not a Sri Lankan cricket fan, (I’m a fan of Australia, South Africa and Pakistan. But I think I’m beginning to like this new look Indian team) I gleefully replied, “Sri Lanka is Bowling, and India is batting.” A minute later I received another sms that said, “Isn’t there any way we could have avoided this?”

YES THERE WAS! The simple solution is to have handled this cricket tournament the way the Sri Lanka Government has been handling the war against the Tamils…oops sorry, what I meant to say was ‘Humanitarian Operation’ to save the Tamils. And that is to look at all their problems as nails that have to be hit over the head with a hammer.

All the Sri Lanka Cricket Board needed to do was take a leaf out of the book of the Sri Lanka Defence Ministry.

1) The Cricket Board could have asked the Indian cricket manager to call over at the Cricket Board.

2) The Cricket Board secretary could then have warned the Indian manager that if his team scored more than 150 runs in any of the 5 one day matches, it would be detrimental to the players health.

3) If these instructions were not followed, and the Indian team continued winning, about twenty armed men could have stormed the Taj hotel at about 2 am in the morning and set fire to it. (The Taj is where the Indian team resides during each tour to Sri Lank).

4) If the Indian team still kept on posting 300 plus scores, four assassins on motor bikes wearing full faced helmets could have been sent to assassinate the Indian coach in broad day light as he was driving his vehicle to the grounds, and call the killing an ‘International Conspiracy’ to tarnish the image of the Cricket Board.

5) The last resort would have been to abduct a few of the star Indian cricketers in ‘White Vans’ and beat them up so that they couldn’t bat or bowl.

May be in future home tours, the Cricket Board may resort to the above rules when playing against opposition that is stronger than them. One tends to wonder if any of these rules were put into practice prior to the last match against the Indians when the Lankan team won a consolation victory.

(A story doing the rounds that the Sri Lankan selectors have included local umpires Kumar Darmasena and Gamini Silva as their 12th and 13th players for the World Cup squad is nothing more than a malicious rumour)

Anyway, congratulations Dohni and the team for a great tournament. Here’s hoping that your team reaches the semi finals in 2011 World Cup along with the Australian, South African and Pakistan teams.