Sri Lanka's Love of Cricket
The tropical island of Sri Lanka is famous for a number of things. On the one hand Sri Lanka has year round warm weather, sandy beaches, exotic birds, majestic elephants, fabulous good quality tea, and expensive gems. These are all on the good side, whilst on the dark side you have the bloody civil war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sinhalese that ended only in May 2009 amongst allegations of war crimes and killing fields. However, above all of these things stands Cricket.Ask any sporting fan and they will tell you Sri Lanka is 100% famous for it's cricket. Ask any Sri Lankan man and they will tell you in no uncertain terms that cricket is Sri Lankas pride and joy. As you tour around Sri Lanka you will see it being played everywhere, on the roads in the villages and cities, in the jungle clearings or amidst the paddy fields, on school playing fields or at the beach, in fact you will see cricket being played by young and old where ever your Lanka travels take you.
British Start Cricket Mania
It was the British who first introduced Cricket to Sri Lanka, back in the days when Sri Lanka was Ceylon and when Britain governed Sri Lanka. In 1882 Sri Lanka played it’s first big match against a British touring side, in those days teams from England and Australia would stop over in Sri Lanka on their way to play international matches and indulge in a bit of pre-match practice. Teams from Sri Lanka were thrown together and inevitably lost!
The road to Test match recognition would take another 100
years! Visiting teams continued to stop off and play, Sri Lanka became more
organized and structured and yes got better and better. During this 100 years
Sri Lanka played many “unofficial test matches” – 51 in total, but their
applications to join the International Cricket Council (ICC) were always
rejected. Finally in 1981 Mr Gamini Dissanayake persuaded the powers that be to
let Sri Lanka join the ICC.
Sri Lankan Cricketers Get A Break
In 1975 Sri Lanka made their debut in the One Day Internationals, World cup. They played the formidable West Indies they managed 81 runs but lost to the Windies. In 1979 they were back again this time better and stronger, they defeated India and took home the cup.
In 1983, Sri Lanka managed
to beat New Zealand and retain the cup but by 1987 in the first World Cup to be
played outside of England, Sri Lanka
were defeated and lost the trophy. In
1992 they showed signs of returning to form and managed to win a couple of
matches but there was still room for improvement!
The breakthrough came in
1996, this was the year that the world sat up and took notice of Sri Lankan
Cricket. A bomb blast in Colombo caused the Australian and the West Indies
teams to pull out, giving Sri Lanka automatic entry into the knock-outs. This
time fortune was on their side and they
went on to triumph and take the cup.
At the end of 2015 Sri Lanka had
played 66 matches in World Cups, out of which they have won 31 and lost
32. Most of the losses were before 1996.
Since 1996, Sri Lanka are the second most consistent team after Australia,
winning 27 of their 41 games.
Planning a holiday or tour of Sri Lanka?
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