Sanath Jayasuriya's prospects surely needs a review

All thought that the world cup 2007 held in the Caribbean would see the end of players like Brian Lara, Inzamam Ul Haq, Glenn McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya. Added to this was the fact that Sri Lanka made it to the finals of the world cup that year and the time for any great cricketer to retire would not have been better than this. However, all but Sanath Jayasuriya didn't make up his mind to retire from international cricket. It is confusing whether it is the greed for more individual records or was it the passion that was left in him still.

For someone like the West Indian great - Brian Lara this opportunity would have been welcome with both hands taking into account his team's caliber in all three formats of the game. It was the team which he was paying that restricted him from taking his prospects forward in international. On the otherhand, Glenn McGrath would also have waited for his retirement which he announced after his team's 5-0 Ashes victory in the preceding year. McGrath was just waiting for the WC to get over which see him one of the few to have played 4 WC finals and 3 WC victories.

Coming to Jayasuriya's case, Jayasuriya had absolutely no or little reasons to feature himself in the world cup 2011 which is four years from the 2007 world cup when all thought that it would be the last time that Sanath Jayasuriya would be seen in international cricket. It was after the 2007 world cup that Jayasuriya became the first player in history of one day cricket to have played 400 ODIs. It was after that he claimed his 300th wicket which uniquely identifies him as the lone player in history to have done a combo of 300+ ODI wickets and 10000+ runs.

And, in case Jayasuriya plays the world cup in 2011, he would be doing it for the 6th time that sees him in par with Pakistan's Javed Miandad and India's Sachin Tendulkar (who is likely to play in the sub continent). One has to also keep this fact in mind that Sanath Jayasuriya holds the record for scoring the most number of ducks in ODI cricket with his score being 34. However, one thing is for syre that Sri Lanka at present can manage even without the likes of Jayasuriya unlike India whose fate without Sachin Tendulkar would be as good as a person without a proper backbone.

Injustice Noted!!!

This is with respect to the fact that the man of the match being given solely to India's Virender Sehwag for scoring his ode day career best score of 146, when the entire match saw almost each and every batsmen from both the sides scoring runs at will. There was India's all time great Sachin Tendulkar who scored yet another half century when he scored 69 off 63 balls and the captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni who scored a 53 ball 72 from India's side and Upul Tharanga and Kumara Sangakkara who returned with scores of 67 and 90 respectively fro Sri Lanka.

In addition to the above mentioned scores, the blistering knock of 160 from the blades of Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardane indeed deserves a lot of applause whatsoever. With all these figures in front, it is nothing but injustice that only one batsman was awarded the man of the match when there was yet another contender for the award despite belonging to the losing side. Justice meant in giving away joint man of the match awards to both Mahela Jayawardane and Virender Sehwag. There have been many such instances in the past where a player from the losing side is awarded the man of the match.

Recently, if our memories are still aware, Sachin Tendulkar was awarded the man of the match for scoring a blistering 175 against Australia when India lost the match by just 3 runs when chasing a mammoth total of 350 set by Australia. No doubt that Sachin Tendulkar did deserve the award whatsoever that particular day. However, it is to be noted that Australia were without a single noted bowler in their side. Anyway that is secondary. This was just a similar match where India won by 3 runs when defending their mammoth total of 414 runs. And a point to be noted is that India were the home side in both the matches against Oz as well as against Sri Lanka.

I just cannot differentiate how come Jayawardane's name was never mentioned while declaring the man of the match when he equally deserved the award. I remember Inzamam-Ul-Haq being awarded the man of the match for scoring 122 against India in the first ODI while chasing 350 at Karachi. Moreover, if the greatest ODI in the history of the game is taken a close look at, it was South Africa who had won the game but the man of the match was shared by both Australia's Ricky Ponting and South Africa's Herschelle Gibbs for scoring 164 and 175 respectively. The difference between the runs scored by these batsmen was 11 runs as compared to the 14 run difference between that scored by Sehwag and Jayawardane.