Sangakarra Denied Century as Canada Collapse at Hambantota

Today has proven to be a testing day for the associate teams. Given the Kenyan upset just a few hours prior to their match with big cats Sri Lanka, would Canada take example from the crushed Kenyans, or not set their hopes too high?

With the looming threat of utter embarrassment for the Canadians, they were kicked into action by keeping the Sri Lankans quite tight during the mandatory powerplay. The Lankans managed a mere 54 off the mandatory powerplay, however, this wasn't a waste of balls for the Lankans, but a clever game plan. Aware that they were playing minnows, they played a cautious innings, which managed to stretch their score to 332. Bearing in mind that none of the two teams had previously played at the stadium before, the Lankans made a pretty respectful total in my opinion. Whilst Sangakarra was denied his century and stupidly hit the ball straight into the hands of bowler John Davison, Jayawardene seemed relieved when he got his century, only to be caught out on the next ball he faced. The third highest run scorer for the Sri Lankans, as predicted, was Tilakaratne Dilshan, with a respectable 50 runs at the end of his innings. 


I would like to bring to light some of the things I noticed during the match. Was it me, or were the Canadians getting more injuries than they were getting runs or wickets? First it was Osinde, Canada's best bowling option, who was seen to have injured his hamstring in his third over bowling, whilst Canada's star batsman, Rizwan Cheema, was hobbling during his innings. There was also another batsman who was injured and had to have a runner. Perhaps this shows that Canada are not yet ready for the strain of the world's biggest cricket tournament, if they have so many injury prone players in their team, and not just any players, but the best players they have. 

However, having said that, the Canadian bowlers showed an incredibly high level of aggression and determination towards getting vital wickets. It's a different story that their approach didn't work. Particularly flustered were Davison and Baidwan, the latter of which was actually given a warning after bowler a serious bouncer in anger. Competition is only healthy, but when it gets to the point where you want to fracture someone's skull with a cricket ball, I think its time to tone things down just a tiny notch. 


All in all, the Canadian innings was an incredibly slow and painful version of the previous Kenyan innings. It's like the lethal injection, and being behead with a blunt axe. Both forms of execution will kill you, but one will be more slow and painful than the other. So to use that analogy, every time a Canadian wicket fell, it was like taking a blow from the blunt axe for the Canadians. The Canadians ended up all out, giving the Lankans a colossal victory of 210 runs. 

It was predicted that this would be a one-sided game, however, for the start of the Sri Lankan innings, it seemed as if Canada were putting up a good fight. However, it soon became apparent that Canada were destined for a massive loss, just as the Kenyans had been subjected to a few hours earlier.