I was lucky to be able to witness the final in Dambulla. I would like to share this fantastic experience with members of this forum.

Chandika Hathurusingha was appointed 'shadow coach' of Sri Lanka to become an understudy to the two foreign coaches, but earlier this year during the tri nation series in Zimbabwe, the shadow coach wa

When first appointed in May this year Sri Lanka's sports minster created the impression that he was going to clean things up in a corrupt institution. In fact, CB Ratnayake made big changes in his very first week.

Ratnayake sacked the existing selection panel and appointed Aravinda de Silva as chief selector replacing Ashantha de Mel.

He then publicly labelled Sri Lanka Cricket a corrupt institution, but shortly after instead of sacking those in charge, he extended Somchandra de Silva's tenure as chairman and also allowed the controversial Nishantha Ranatunga to remain as secretary of the interim committee that runs Sri Lanka Cricket.

Close to $450 worth of cutlery has gone missing at the Rangiri Dambulla International Cricket Stadium during the ongoing Micromax triangular series.

After 325 ODIs Mahela Jayawardene has 12 ODI centuries. In comparison, Upul Tharanga who has played just 105 ODIs has eight centuries and a higher batting average than Jayawardene. Despite having the stats to challenge any batsman in the current Sri Lankan line up, Tharanga always finds himself sidelined inexplicably.

All it takes is one failure from Tharanga to see his place in the side questioned while some seniors continue to fail when the side needs them most, but hold their place in the side thanks to the occasional performance.

In Sri Lanka's last match - Match five of the Micromax Tri Series in Sri Lanka - Mahela Jayawardene was promoted up the order to open batting pushing Tharanga - an opening batsman throughout his career - down the order to accommodate Jayawardene's needs.

Following yesterday's cricket encounter between Sri Lanka and India, SLC and BCCI, the cricket boards of the two respective countries held a joint press conference in which they addressed several issues regarding incidents happened which seemed clear breaches of BCCI Code of Conduct.

Umpire Kumara Dharmasena was found guilty following him giving Virender Sehwag out LBW when the batsman was only 88 runs short of a well deserved 100. We find this act unsportsmanlike, and should be avoided in future games, remarked Nishantha Ranatunga the secretary of SLC. This is not the way we would like our players and officials to approach the game, hence Dharmasena will be severely penalized for his behavior. He faces a prospective ban of 4 international games, and will be likely to lose all his match fee for the Sunday's game. However, the BCCI officials confirmed to us that Dharmasena went to the Indian dressing room during the break and apologized to Sehwag, an act of showing his remorse which might come in his favor when giving the final verdict. Batsman Virender Sehwag has confirmed this on Twitter saying "He came to me apologizing, and I accepted it being the gentleman I am". Mr. Ranatunga extended his apologies to the BCCI on behalf of Dharmasena at the press conference.

This is perhaps the first time that a losing skipper has avoided the post match press conference.

MS Dhoni has managed to turn even the Indian media against him after suffering one of the most embarrassing defeats in India's ODI history.

The Sri Lanka – India ODI dosage this time had more spice even before a ball was bowled. The obvious reason was that Randiv No Ball. Suraj Randiv received a one match suspension for his antics by SLC in addition to 100% fine of his match fee along with partner in crime, TM Dilshan.

Most of the Sri Lankan fans were vary of this gesture by SLC, if anybody in the Sri Lankan team did not come out in support of him, there was at least one, showing his placard, ‘Randiv we are with you’.

When the batsman on strike is on 99 runs, what happens? The captain from the opposition brings the field in to prevent that batsman from making those runs, right?

Well, Sri Lanka Cricket has decided that such tactics go against the "spirit" of the game and it hopes to penalise it's players.

Hello friends,

It has been quite some time since I blogged on Island Cricket last, nine months to be exact, but very rarely during the last nine months (except the great Murali moment in Galle and our MP’s fantastic batting average during the T20 World Cup) nothing ‘happened’ which I could blog about, and, alas, something did happen, something we Sri Lankans just could not learn from the Aussies until now, a screw job!

In my opinion, August 16th 2010 will be remembered for the following reasons:

Sri Lanka's batting in yesterday's (16th Aug 2010) match reminded me of the old Arabian Nights story of Alibaba.

Since it's very first international match - an ODI between England and Sri Lanka in March 2001 - the pitch at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium has been criticised for producing low scoring matches.

Where on the subcontinent batsmen are accustomed to bashing bowlers black and blue, and amassing large totals in what some would say is a largely one-sided affair to begin with, Dambulla has been criticised for making the lives of batsmen too tough.

In the first match played at Dambulla back in 2001, England - batting first - only managed to score 143. It took Sri Lanka 40 overs and five balls to surpass England's low score which the hosts managed to chase at a low run rate of 3.52. On that occasion - with Dambulla being a new venue - the low scoring affair was attributed to pitch consultant Andy Atkinson having just eight weeks to prepare the surface.

When Aravinda de Silva was appointed Chairman of Selectors, he made an unusual promise; de Silva promised to talk to players and explain to them why they were dropped from the side when changes in the squad take place.

Just a few months after making such a strong statement, Farveez Maharoof in an interview with zeecric.com wants to know why he was axed.

According to the Sunday Times, fast bowler Lasith Malinga is understood to be unhappy with the central contract offered to him. Despite being Sri Lanka's most lethal pace bowling option, Malinga had been awarded a Category 4 contract.

Ajantha Mendis, Chamara Kapugedera, Upul Tharanga, Thilan Thushara, Rangana Hearth, Prasana Jayawardana and Thilina Kandamby were also awarded a Category 4 contract. And going by those names, it's clear that Sri Lanka's fastest bowler, and by far the best fast bowler in the country deserves much better.