Sri Lanka vs Australia: 1996 World Cup Championship wins & exciting clash

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On this day in 1996, Sri Lanka defeated Australia in the finals of the 1996 World Cup. With one hundred, 3 wikis, and 2 catches, Aravinda de Silva was the undisputed hero of the game. .

Arjuna Ranatunga, captain of the Lankan team, won the toss and asked the Kangaroos to bat first. With the permission of skipper Mark Taylor 74 and Michael off 36 out of 49 members, Australia scored 63 in the last 10 pitches and settled 241/7 overall.

In response, Sri Lanka lost their famous opening duo of Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana, with just 23 runs on the board.

Running 242, it was a difficult step at the time but Aravinda De Silva came in, and together with Asanka Gurusinha sewed a valuable partnership to lead Lanka out of trouble.

After Gurusinha’s departure, Ranatunga joined De Silva in the middle and remained undefeated on 47 (off 37 balls). The duo made 97 runs in a fourth wicket partnership without a loss and appropriately the two high-scouts wrote a historic day in Lankan cricket.

The conflict

Both Australia and Sri Lanka have competed eight times in the World Cup.

But the Lankans have won just one game by right against Australia. The same rightful victory came for Sri Lanka in the 1996 World Cup final. In every other game, however, it is Australia that has won. The 1996 World Cup was a different story with Sri Lanka still unbeaten throughout the tournament. In fact, Australia lost twice to Sri Lanka, technically, in that tournament. Australia had withdrawn from their league game against Sri Lanka in Colombo due to security fears and the points were awarded to the guest. In the final round at Lahore, Sri Lanka famously ran down 241 Australians in total for seven in their 50 pitches with 22 balls remaining. Aravinda de Silva was the hero of that win and the first ever World Cup trophy in Sri Lanka with 107 unbeaten off 124 balls.

But since then when the two sides have met it has been a one-way traffic.

Australia won the Super Six match of the 2003 World Cup, then the semi-finals of the 2003 World Cup and finally won the 2007 World Cup final in somewhat gloomy conditions at Barbados. That 2007 final was the last full match between the two sides in the World Cup. The 2007 final was also not without some drama with the game officials forgetting the rules that need to be enforced in case the 20 named overs were enforced. Then in the 2011 World Cup, the match between the two sides came to an abrupt end, with water playing spoilsport.

But the most controversial match between the two sides was at the 1975 World Cup, when they defeated him for the first ever ODI. Australian goalkeeper Jeff Thomson defeated two Sri Lankan players — Sunil Wettimuny and Duleep Mendis — with his bouncers.

Wettimuny and Mendis found themselves well against an Aussie speed battery when they were hit by thunder Thommo. Years later, Wettimuny and Mendis moved their horrors. “It was like a flame. I couldn’t see the ball, ”Wettimuny recalled in an interview with Cricinfo. “It was the fastest bowling speed I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mendis said. “It averaged over 100 miles. It was very fast and we had no defenses, ”Mendis told Cricinfo in that interview.

It was said that Thommo himself said: “They were just little fellas, so you couldn’t say he was a bouncer!”

Now both Wettimuny and Mendis see the funny side of what happened. Mendis recalled years later an incident in which police asked him to bring charges against Thomson. “The next morning police walked into my room. He held his bobby helmet under one arm and asked, ‘Do you want to press charges against Mr Jeff Thomson? ‘

Interestingly, Wettimuny was going to be a pilot after that. His best moment as a pilot was attacking a special plane from Lahore in 1996 with the winning Sri Lankan squad. Guess, who was the manager of the Sri Lankan squad? Duleep Mendis. Along with him, captain Arjuna Ranatunga, Mendis celebrated with Wettimuny in the candle before the team crashed in Colombo.

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