EDITORIAL: THE DAILY MIRROR, SRILANKA

vye for 2015

It should have been a victory.  It is in a way.

The whole nation stands disappointed, but the heartening thing is we as a nation had not given up or turned against the cricketers. The nation still stands behind the team even in defeat.

It was anyhow, a much needed victory for a country that had gone through continuous misery for three decades. It would have been a balm for a nation that was wounded in war and natural calamities. But destiny had it otherwise.

While the following days are going to see a barrage of analyses and comments by many a cricket pundit, we stand by Sri Lanka Cricket captain Kumar Sangakkara and his boys and congratulate them on the valiant fight they put up in Wankhede, Mumbai on Saturday.

Already many theories and analyses have started to emerge over the deafeat.

There are many ‘ifs’ and ‘thens’.

Many may wonder why Ajantha Mendis was dropped; why Vaas was not included while Nuwan was.

Loudest of them is Nuwan’s dropped catch of Gambhir.  Things are easier said than done.

Many fail to realize that ultimately it rests upon Sanga to decide on the team and the game.

Had he won the match all critics would have been saying all nice things about his abilities now.

The Lankan team was playing under tremendous pressure, in an electrified atmosphere of a stadium which was filled with a more than 35,000, cheering crowd. And the pressure on the Indian team would have been far greater, we need to congartulate them also for winning the cup after 27 years.

As many of us saw, Lankan batsmen were struggling to score during the initial overs.  Somehow the team reached 274. But when they entered for fielding it was clearly visible in their body language that the boys were not psychologically sound to face the batting attack. And the bowling attack was very weak, without Ajantha and Vas perhaps and Murali was nowhere his normal self in the field.

It is notable that Sangakkara knew about this. In fact he had warned about his side’s stagefright in an earlier occasion anyway.

Kumar Sangakkara believed his team's qualification for the World Cup final could further unite a country  after the end of a decades-long civil war. He has stressed the significance of the win for the country's cohesion earlier. “Cricket has always been the panacea that heals all in Sri Lanka, so winning the World Cup final would be huge for the country," he had said earlier.

Whatever the pundits say one should realize that the man in the field has the best understanding of the situation to make any decision with regard to a game and Sanga did what he thought was best for the team’s victory and we all should stand by it. They are the professionals and we should leave it to them. Winning is surely everything these days but accepting defeat magnanimously and with humility as did Sanga makes a greater sportsman. We salute that spirit and look forward that our national pride would do much better in the coming days and the next World Cup in 2015.

Now that we know our weaknesses and strengths and that we know the next ICC World Cup would be held Down Under, it would be wise to prepare a team for the conditions there and bring the cup in 2015. We have enough time to do that.