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| Sunday, 22 February 2004 |
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Aussies will be out to reassert themselves against workmanlike Lankan side by SRIAN OBEYESEKERE Cricket has moved from Aussie land to the sub-continent nation of Sri Lanka in a testing intensity for the visiting Australians as much as it is bound to be for the host nation. For the host country the home series of five One-dayers and 3 Test matches which will redefine the Sri Lankans status which has undergone a decline in standings of late. For world beaters Australia, whose cricket had reached a crescendo of invincibility in both forms of the game until it was somewhat dented by Sourav Ganguly's Indians on Australian soil recently. Indeed, the tour will not only be about the customary adjusting to the sub-continent heat and ground conditions for Ricky Ponting's Aussies. It will go beyond to the world beaters going into the middle to reassert the fact that they carry the same clout minus Steve Waugh in the Test team. Certainly, it will be that longer version of the game than the jaw climaxing One-dayers that has come to fascinate the world for all its dressings, that will be the real crunch for both nations. It will therefore be the real test for new captain Ricky Ponting who steps into the boots of longtime captain Steve Waugh. Not only of overcoming a stiff challenge to be mounted by his Sri Lankan counterpart, Hashan Tillekeratne, but also of carrying on a legacy left behind by the legend that was Waugh - of carrying on a job that catapulted Waugh into a very exclusive elite fold of going out with an unmatched captaincy record. In so much it is a daunting task for Waugh's successor. A task which must add the dimension of knowing that he will also be facing the disadvantage of having to redress a 0-1 three-Test series defeat when Australia last met Sri Lanka in a Test series in this island nation. What is more a defeat conceded under Waugh's leadership itself. Still further, Ponting will also seek to stamp Australia's invincibility as world champions of One-day cricket where his world beaters will be looking at also redressing a lost triangular series in 1999 under Waugh which was won by Sri Lanka under Sanath Jayasuriya. The Sri Lankans coasted to a handsome 8-wicket triumph to take the Aiwa Cup, despite Australia having dominated the series also contested by India with 4 wins in the run-up matches as against a solitary win by Sri Lanka and India. At the time of writing Friday morning, the curtain raiser was to commence the same day in a day-night game at the Dambulla Stadium. Certainly, it will be the scare the Aussies were given by the Indians before bouncing back from 0-1 down to square the Test series 1-all that has lent much interest to the Australia-Sri Lanka series. The Indians indeed showed the rest of the cricketing world that the Australians are beatable in a series, which apart from that Indian Test win, also saw Ganguly's cricketers more or less outplay Waugh's team underlined by two rousing double centuries by master batsman Sachin Tendulkar and V. V. Laxman, the latter underscoring a love for caning the Aussie bowlers on the back of that home series double hundred culminating in an Indian series triumph which broke Australia's 16 Test match wins on the trot. For the Sri Lankans, the bringing down of the English in the recent 3-Test series in the fruition of that decisive innings triumph in the third Test match, will be the brimstone Hashan Tillekeratne and his charges will breathe against the Aussies. Of course, Tillekeratne, now buoyed by that much needed tonic pumping baptism of a first win in the saddle, will no doubt find that a morale booster as well when he leads his team in the first Test match starting on March 8 in Galle. Interestingly, the cricket is expected to climax in a contest of the two greatest bowlers of their time when Shane Warne is expected to lock horns against local boy, Muttiah Muralitharan in the upcoming Test series. If Warne, who according to recent reports was back playing domestic cricket a fortnight ago, in a race against time satisfies his national selectors that he is match-fit after serving a 1-year long drugs related ban to stage his comeback on Lankan soil, it is bound to generate all the suspense. What with the twosome in a race of the spin twins to reach West Indian, Courtney Walsh's world record of 519 wickets. With Warne, now stranded on 491 Test wickets in that limbo, and our own local darling Muralitharan, better known as 'Murali' with 485 wickets under his belt, rearing to go, cricket on Lankan soil cannot be better if it kisses the high noon of the world's two greatest bowlers yet competing in quest of such a compelling feat of reaching the everest of bowlers at that level. |
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