COLOMBO, (Reuters) – Muttiah Muralitharan is not a man who likes standing in the background but after being eclipsed by his fast bowling team mates for the majority of the World Cup, the leg spinner and his cohorts finally showed their worth against Zimbabwe.
Barring the washout match against Australia, Sri Lanka’s speed merchants led by Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekara have terrorised the opposition and grabbed the majority of the wickets.
Against Kenya, the paceman v spinner tally stood at 8-1, against Canada it was 6-4 but just when it seemed the world’s most prolific wicket-taker would be denied a chance from enjoying a memorable farewell on his home ground, Muralitharan (3-34) and Tillakaratne Dilshan (4-4) struck a blow for the spinners on Kandy’s docile pitch on Thursday.
Muralitharan and Dilshan’s success was the final link that Sri Lanka needed as they headed into the knockout stages determined to become the first Asian side to win two World Cups on the sub-continent following their 1996 triumph.
“We are going to carry this confidence into the next couple of matches,” Dilshan told reporters following up his swashbuckling knock of 144 with four wickets in Sri Lanka’s 139-run win over Zimbabwe.
“We have a very important match against New Zealand. We will not take that match for granted as winning it may help us to top the group. Also from this point onwards, we can’t afford to make any mistakes. We have to play our best cricket from the New Zealand match onwards.”
However, after becoming the first team to qualify for the last eight, Kumar Sangakkara’s men can afford to experiment with their line-up in their final Group A match against New Zealand next Friday. Not that he has much to worry about.
While other title favourites such as India and England are having to cope with their misfiring bowlers and sloppy fielders, South Africa have been hit by an injury to their leading wicket-taker — spinner Imran Tahir — while Australia are lacking in match practice having barely played in two weeks.
No such worries will concern the Sri Lankans since their batsman have ripped apart rival bowling attacks as Zimbabwe discovered to their dismay when no amount of spin or pace could break apart the opening stand until Upul Tharanga and Dilshan had posted an eye-popping 282 runs for the first wicket.
All their bowlers have also been among the wickets.
Sri Lanka have kept faith with three main bowlers — Muralitharan, Malinga and Kulasekara — for their matches while changing the other bowlers according to the opponents and the pitch — it is winning formula that has the backing of vice captain Mahela Jayawardene.
“That is something we have experimented for the last one and half years,” Jayawardene said.
“It works for us quite well. It is something that we feel will keep the opposition in two minds, who we are going to play and how it will affect their game plan. That’s something that we are working on during this tournament.”
