Its like this, I am not a huge cricket fan, the matches make me bored along the game. One guy balls, another guy slowly hits and 8 people try to send him to bench (but should mention, when the batsmen hits hard or when others send him to bench its always fun 😀 ). Being in Sri Lanka one thing you inherit is the cricket fever, from your grand dad to siblings, they all watch (or maybe play) cricket. The Wills world cup (1996), I just rem from here and there, (I was in grade 5 😀 good times) is one nice memory I have, Sri Lanka winning the big cup and we all were staring at the TV with great joy.
Anyways with all that background story, yesterday I happened to be there at R. Premadasa international cricket stadium to watch the Sri Lanka vs New Zealand T20 match. Folks at work made plans to watch the match for weeks and finally 12 turned up. (This time the numbers were low coz there was a rumor that SL lost the SL vs Pakistan match coz they were there that day) however I took a ticket (Dumindu Threatened me to buy :D) and was there few minutes before the game started.
New Zealand batted 1st and the game became fun, with all the cheering, shouting and screaming. The foreigners were good they played 141 for 8 wickets and it was the time for the home players. I was amused, I was not bored in fact I enjoyed it so much and was waiting till our innings start.
The SL inning started after about half an hour with some drops of rain, but it was all good. The fans were shouting.. “Go SRI LANKA”, “Common SANGA / SANA / DILSHAN” and I was among them too. The 1st half of the innings was great, Dilshan played well with a 50 in 23 balls lifting the SL run rate. My hopes were for Jayasuriya coz he was my hero since 96, but he was out with 1 run and it was disappointing. With Sri Lanka’s 3rd wicket (Sangakara) the batsmen kept falling. and there was no one to carry on Dilshan’s run rate. but until the last over we had the chance to win, it was 9 runs with 7 balls, then 8 with 5 and finally 3 with 1. So we lost. 😦
I saw the faces of people around me, all their happy faces are turned dark, and it was sad indeed. But well for me I was happy, (Not for we lost) I enjoyed the match, the time I spent, even the defeat, we gave a good fight. So yeah it was one great experience for a newbie cricket fan.
@nuwanbando 