ක්‍රීඩා තොරතුරු

Was really excited for CR & FC at the beginning of the season. It stayed until before the 5th week against Havelock SC. But yet again for the umpteenth time CR just proved to me that it is really hard to be a fan of them. Let me explain my title first. I used to have 1997 make Toyota Caldina. Very spacious and comfortable, family friendly vehicle. Yes, the damn diesel automobile took me every where.  Here comes the BUT. But every month or so I would be doing some repair. I would fix the issue and would be happy. Always the joy was short lived. The very next month I would be at the garage trying to fix some thing else. Having being a CR fan almost for 20 years now, they remind me of my poor old car. If they have good forwards, then they would be lacking backs. Or rather a fly half, who could distribute the ball and set his back line in motion. Of the all  years Fazil "the legend" Marija haunted  CR and tore apart defenses,  I believe young Tarinda Ratwat...

I wanted to write about Royal vs St' Joseph's game before this. But had butterflies in my stomach preventing it. Honestly thought if Joes to win it would be by very small margin and for Royal were to win by much bigger margin. Game ended with just 5 points difference. I believe score line does not tell the exact story how Royal dominated the game. You might not agree with me , but if you want to verify just watch the replay. It was a great game of rugby where simply showed why schools rugby is way ahead of club rugby in the country. Both sides played really well. Only unfortunate thing was referee Dinka Peries had a very bad day. Lets not talk about it since nothing will change from that. Coming back to the game I really like the way current and recent past Royal teams are playing. They know exactly what to do. What opposition will throw at them. They absorb pressure like sponge. Other teams should thank the game is only 70 minutes this year. Those 10 extra minutes would ...

Its a harsh word to say , but I have been keep saying this. " We deserve to loose games" . No matter how you can live in glorified past, it does not resolve your current issues. Against South Africa, knowing Angelo Mathews is not available we still opted to play just 3 bowlers and bits and pieces spinner plus Asela Gunarathna. Result was evident. Asela and Prasanna combined to give away 136 runs for no pressure at all. Then Imran Thahir ran through our middle order like knife through butter. Sri Lanka took Lakshan Sandakan on tour saying that he will be the X factor blah, blah. When Oval pitch was not clearly a run fest , they went ahead with Prasanna and what was the result? You all know. We know we don't have bowler capable of taking wickets in the middle overs. So then play the bowler who you believed to do that for you. I am not surprised if we bring Thisara at number 8 tomorrow, who is neither bowler or batsman. We are a stupid to that level who are not resp...

On a perfect Saturday evening Royal managed to break hearts of double blues at their home. A game that promised to be a thriller stayed as it is providing spectators worth of their money. Coming in to this penultimate week Trinity, Isipathana, Royal and Wesley were in the title race. I honestly thought Wesley were true contenders to the title this season amid their early season drubbing in the hands of Trinity and the drama that followed. My opinion was both Royal and Wesley were neck to neck while Royal had a slight advantage. There were two major reasons for that. First one is Royal were playing at home and second is they are a 80 minute team. If you followed Royal through out the season , they managed to hang on playing full 80 minutes. As rugby pundits suspected it seemed like Wesley did not have the enough gas to last entire 80 minutes. Wesley started with a bang. As they promised they came with all guns firing, creeping mistakes in to Royal camp. Royal's golden boy o...

Woke up early at 4 AM here to watch what I thought would be a regular prize to grab, but end of the day proved otherwise. Evergreen Pathana boys once again  proved that they are not going to go down with out a fight. In-fact they won the war. Last week I commented on Royal rugby page saying that if we ( Royal) play basic rugby that we know, we should win the game. But day ended in disappointing manner leaving me wondering what Royal were trying to do. There were two tries scored of ill passes , most noticeably the last try scored by Sumudu Rankothge which sealed the deal for Pathana. I am sure Sumudu scored much hard working tries to win games , but would take this piece of cake with out thinking twice on any given day. If you watched those two tries scored by Pathana, they were result of Royal trying to spread the ball wide in side  their own 22 leading to fatal mistakes. Royal from the beginning looked to me like did not understood the equatio...

Finally we won a game. As I saw on social media and on many one to one chats , many were not that much pleased. There were talk about three missed boundaries given away by Afghans and etc..  But I would say we need to appreciate the victory and look forward. By all means it is a very good victory. Afghans are by no means are minnows now specially when it comes to T20 cricket. The gap can be minimum between full member side and minnow side in T20 simply because minnows has to concentrate only for 40 overs rather that 100 overs or longer version of the game. Even in life you can't judge a person by short period of time right? So guys we need to cut some slack for our boys. The victory is a very good one. Why I say that is we didn't look rattled like in UAE game in asia cup. We played the cricket the way we used to play except for Malinga yokers. Batting after some time looked pretty good , Angelo finally looked like hitting his form even with the late end cameo which is good...