Sri Lanka was on a winning streak when it reached the quarterfinal and was going up against England, a team that had never failed to reach the semifinal in past editions of the tournament. Furthermore, Sri Lanka had never beaten England in the Cricket World Cup.
But openers Jayasuriya, who had come into the Cricket World Cup averaging 19 from 19 ODIs, and Romesh Kaluwitharana were looking quite the dangerous pair. Doing away with preferred method of the pair at the top creating a platform and seeing off the new ball, Kaluwitharana and Jayasuriya took advantage of the fielding restrictions in the first fifteen overs to provide blazing starts. As a result, Sri Lanka amassed 117 against India and 123 against Kenya in the first fifteen overs in the group stage matches.
The Moment
Sri Lanka had done well to restrict England to 235 for 8 in the first innings, with Jayasuriya running out opener Robin Smith before picking up two wickets with his left-arm spin. In reply, Sri Lanka didn’t get off to the best of starts on the spinner-friendly Faisalabad track, with Richard Illingworth removing Kaluwitharana in just the second over.
“Jayasuriya batted as if he were slashing a path through a jungle.”
Peter Roebuck, The Sunday Times, March 1996
However, Jayasuriya was unfazed and he put the pressure back on Illingworth, smashing four consecutive boundaries in the fourth over. Even the English pacers weren’t able to get their lengths right, bowling a touch too full and straight. Jayasuriya easily dispatched the loose deliveries to the leg-side boundary.
Jayasuriya reached his fifty off just 30 deliveries in the tenth over, driving Phillip DeFreitas through the off side. He began to take a particular liking to DeFreitas’s medium pace, lofting him for his first six over long off. DeFreitas’s torment continued as Jayasuriya took him to the cleaners in the 12th over. 22 runs came off it, including two straight sixes – one of which landed on the roof and hit the satellite dish.
“All Jayasuriya contemplated was which boundary to pepper next.”
Vic Marks, The Guardian, March 1996
Jayasuriya was stumped by Dermot Reeves, one delivery after he was bowled off a no-ball, and remarkably, 85 percent of his runs had come in boundaries – 13 fours and three sixes. The platform was set and victory beckoned.
What happened next
Sri Lanka galloped to a five-wicket win to reach its first-ever Cricket World Cup semifinal and Jayasuriya was named Man of the Match for his impressive all-round show. Sri Lanka went on to become the first host nation to win the World Cup. Jayasuriya was also awarded Man of the Tournament for his tally of 221 runs and seven wickets.
Later on, he became Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World in 1996. He was also named one of five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1997, becoming the first player to be named who hadn’t played in the previous English season. Jayasuriya and one-day cricket never looked back after that. The brutal knock gave rise to a new breed of swashbuckling openers, whose task was to make the most of the first ten overs, while Jayasuriya went on to hit 24 of his 25 ODI centuries in the next 12 years.
