Home | Kabir | Poetry | Workshop | BoloKids | Bolography | Writers | Contribute | Search | Contact                                                               Shop Online 

April 28, 2007
Jayawardene Travels from School Cricket
to World Cup Glory

Bridgetown (Barbados)
When Sri Lanka beat Australia in March 1996 to win their first Cricket World Cup, an 18-year old Mahela Jayawardene was playing in a school match in Colombo.

Eleven years and 246 one-day matches later, Jayawardene is now poised to lead his country in the final of cricket's major showpiece against Australia, in a repeat of that historic 1996 final.

"I was playing in a big match. Back home we have these traditional school big matches and unfortunately our big match was fixed on that World Cup day," Jayawardene recalled.

"The first day we had about 10,000 people watching our game and the second day we only had about a hundred people. We wanted to make sure we finished the game.

"Unfortunately, by the time I got home, our guys (Sri Lankan team) had already bowled and were just about to go to bat so I just glued to the TV and watched that. It was a brilliant experience and was probably one of the best days of our lives as Sri Lankans because that actually created opportunities for most of our guys.

"I think we took the option of finishing off our game one hour earlier so we could head back home and watch the game," the 29-year old skipper joked to reporters.

In that final, Jayawardene witnessed a stunning display of batting from Aravinda de Silva who plundered an unbeaten 107 as Sri Lanka overhauled Australia's 241 for seven.

He will be looking to draw inspiration from that performance as Sri Lanka chase their second title Saturday.  

IANS | April 28, 2007

Top