I was on New Zealand's LIVESPORT Radio this morning talking about the increase in ticket prices for England's 2011 tour of Sri Lanka, Rangana Herath coming into his own after Muttiah Muralitharan's retirement and the ongoing series. Listen to a few excerpts below.

When Mahela Jayawardena visited the north of Sri Lanka recently, he came across this promising fast bowler Nagarasa Dhanusha.

Goutham Chakravarthi from The CouchExpert wanted to chat about Sri Lanka cricket for his podcast. I'm always up for a good chat, so I agreed and it was good fun.

After the loss at Galle this week and after failing with the bat in both innings, Tillakaratne Dilshan was asked if he would change his game.

"I'm not going to change my batting, I've batted the last three or four years aggressive and I want to play my own shots," was the Sri Lankan captain's response.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) sent out a press release this morning announcing that they would retain Tillakaratne Dilshan as Sri Lankan captain until December 31, 2011.

Awhile back, I recall hearing Tony Greig on commentary talking about a conversation he had with a Sri Lankan batsman. To summarise what he said, Greig had asked the player what a Googly was and the batsman found it difficult to explain.

“How can you pick it, if you don’t know what it is,” Greig asked.

After arriving in Taunton as a replacement for Somerset’s Murali Karthik, a lot was expected of Sri Lanka’s 'mystery spinner' Ajantha Mendis but the 26 year-old was far from convincing.

Former captain Kumar Sangakkara’s horses for courses policy has, more often than not, left the spinner from Moratuwa out of the Sri Lankan side against opposition that the skipper and selectors felt had mastered the bowler.

Struggling to hold on to his place in the side and with his confidence dented as a result, Mendis has failed to reproduce the magic of his debut Test series, where he scalped 26 wickets in a three-match series at 18.38 apiece against India, breaking Sir Alec Bedser’s record for most wickets in a debut Test series.

The ICC is planning on changing its constitution, which will minimise government and political interference and eliminate interim committees in member boards.

Most teams had already experimented with the idea of opening the innings with a pinch-hitter before the 1996 World Cup, but no one had tried two. Going after as many runs as possible during the first 15 overs, Sri Lanka were able to replace both their conventional openers with batsmen capable of belting the ball cleanly.

In December 1995, Sri Lanka embarked on their 1995/96 tour to Australia, where dramatic changes to their batting order was about to take place. It was a decision sparked by a string of defeats and demoralising batting collapses. When it was time to leave Australia, Roshan Mahanama along with his partner, Chandika Hathurusingha, had lost their positions in the team as openers.

I found this article quietly hidden away (scroll down to the middle of the page) in this week's The Nation newspaper. Although it doesn't name names, it says a "senior cricketer turned politician is blaming the country’s top politicians for misleading him into believing that he would be selected for this month’s World Cup cricket tournament."

Sri Lankan all-rounder Angelo Mathews launches his official website.

There won't be a final hurrah at the World Cup for the men, who along with Muttiah Muralitharan, helped put Sri Lanka on the world sports map. That’s all the two champions had asked for - one last chance at the 2011 World Cup to bid farewell.

If the selectors were decisive and if Sri Lanka Cricket officials were a more capable bunch, they could have been clear, early, squashing any false hopes that Jayasuriya and Vaas may have had of playing in the World Cup. They weren’t.

Forty years ago almost to the day, persistent showers frustrated everyone at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where a Test match between England and Australia had lost its first three days of play to bad weather. Both sides then agreed to play a shorter version of the game – eight balls per over and forty overs per side.

What resulted was the first One Day International (ODI) match ever played. January 5, 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of ODI cricket. It is now the chosen format that decides cricket’s most coveted prize: The ICC Cricket World Cup.

Cricket made it's debut at the 2010 Asian Games in China. Although prominent Asian sides like Sri Lanka and Pakistan sent second string sides due to international commitments, and India opted to boycott the event, it still is a historic moment.

It was heartening to hear that tickets for the cricket matches were sold out. But in the opening match of the competition, the stands were empty.

Rod Marsh said that he picks Sri Lanka to win the World Cup next year. Oh, as an after thought he did mention India, too.

Marsh, who kept wickets for Australia in the 70s and 80s felt that it was tough for teams like Australia, South Africa and England to win in the sub-continent.

On this week's ICC Cricket World audio show Marsh said: "I would think a team from Asia would be successful, perhaps Sri Lanka, I quite fancy them for the title and of course India."