Cricket is a faster game today’

Sri Lanka’s unsung hero of the 1996 World Cup triumph Asanka Gurusinha played a key role in the victorious side as a number three left hand batsman.

Most of the cricket experts introduced Gurusinha as a complete cricketer. He could bat, bowl and keep wickets, the anchor around which the Sri Lankan batting revolved from the mid 80s to the mid 90s. After he retired from international cricket he was away in Australia for nearly 20 years and is now back home to serve the sport.

At the moment Gura as he is fondly called, is the head of the High Performance Unit and Brain Centre of Sri Lanka Cricket.

But how does Gurusinha see the game today when compared to what it was when he held sway.

“Our side was the most experienced World Cup team in 1996. The first seven batsmen had close to a 1000 one day games between them. That was the major deference compared to other teams,” said Gurusinha.

“Most of us played in previous World Cups. That was my third World Cup and for Arjuna Ranatunga most probably his fourth or fifth and that experience was very important. We don’t have that kind of a team for this World Cup.

“In 1996 we had a very stable team and playing together for a long time. I was batting at number three for nearly ten years. Aravinda was four and Arjuna was at five.

“The openers Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana were part of a tactical strategy. From 1992/93 the squad was together. Sanath came in from 1989 and there was Murali, Promodya and Vaas from the early 1990s.

“But the current team does not have that ability and that is the difference between then and now,” added Gurusinha.

Gurusinha now sees cricket as a game that has evolved into a faster version leading up to the 2019 World Cup.

“As you know in 1996 a total of 250 runs was a winning score. But today 250 runs can be chased down in 30 overs. The fielding standard is also very high and all this shows in T20 cricket.

“The players play a lot of cricket and are very aggressive. The bowling in the T20 format has seen changes with so much of variations.

“The other factor is the wrist spinners coming into play around the world now. That means left arm Chinaman and right arm leg spinner. In 1996 only Shane Warne was around. These days wrist spinners are match winners in one-day cricket,” contends Gurusinha.

He said playing cricket in England during May and June suits spinners and Sri Lanka with several spinners should not worry about the conditions.

But Gurusinha also contends that off-spinner Dhananjaya de Silva will have to do plenty of bowling which will be a bigger challenge for him.