Everton hate losing to Liverpool in football. De La Salle hate losing to St. Benedict’s in basketball. Bloomfield hate losing to Sinhalese Sports Club in local cricket and Sri Lankans hate losing to India in international cricket. The rivalry between neighbours usually brings the best out of the smaller brother. There’s nothing worse than losing to the big brother.
Sri Lanka and India will again renew their rivalry when they meet in a hastily arranged five-match ODI series.
Sri Lankan fans take enormous satisfaction when their side beats India. Celebrations went beyond control when Sri Lanka won the ICC World Twenty20 early this year. It was extremely special as the win had come against their neighbours.
However, in recent times, the Sri Lankans have been at the receiving end. Since the dawn of the new millennium, up until 2008, the contests were pretty much even. India have dominated since then. In the bilateral or tri-nation series involving these teams since 2008, India have won seven series against Sri Lanka’s three triumphs. There have been several heartbreaks as well with the worst being the bitter loss in the 2011 World Cup final in Mumbai.
Sri Lanka’s golden era in one-day cricket was in the mid-90s where there were many memorable triumphs including a World Cup semi-final win against India in Kolkata. Arjuna Ranatunga, who led Sri Lanka to the World Cup title in 1996, puts the win over India in the league stage as being pivotal for his team.
“The semi-final win was great, but the group game before that in Delhi gave us lot of confidence. India scored 270 odd thanks to a superb Sachin century. When we chased that target with six wickets in hand that gave us lot of confidence,” he tells gocricket.com. “That was the turning point. I remember after that win the youngest member of the squad Ravindra Pushpakumara coming up to me and saying that if we can beat India in India, we can go all the way to win the World Cup.”
It’s an interesting stat that India hadn’t beaten Sri Lanka in a World Cup game until 1999. However, the teams had met only thrice in World Cups until then. Once in 1979 and twice in 1996. The 1979 contest in Manchester was won by the Sri Lankans. It was Sri Lanka’s first ever win in an ODI and a memorable one as that game opened the path for their Test status.
Roy Dias, who set up the win with a half-century, narrates the story. “It was a star-studded Indian side. They had players like Gavaskar, Amaranath, Kapil, Bedi, Vengsarkar, Venkatragavan and Vishwanath. The game was in Manchester and we were quite happy to go to Manchester as several of us had played league cricket there. We received a big blow as our captain Anura (Tennekoon) got injured during practices the day before the match. Bandula (Warnapura) led us against India,” he remembers.
“It was Duleep (Mendis) who won us the game with a quick 60. We won by 40 odd runs and it was a huge thing for us to win outside Sri Lanka. That win was crucial as our talent was recognized. It was the upset of the tournament. A tiny nation beating mighty India. That win convinced MCC that we were worthy of Test status. We were over the moon. We were one of the Associates Members participating in the tournament along with Canada and that changed our cricket.”
Two years after the win Sri Lanka were granted Test status.
Many fans and even some ex-players believe that the advent of IPL has dulled the contests between India and Sri Lanka. Players on opposite sides are at times team mates representing IPL franchises and you get the feeling that the contests aren’t what they used to be.
The fans still hate seeing their team losing to India. Luckwin Fernando is an IT expert who lives in Colombo. He is also a keen cricket fan and hates it when Sri Lanka lose to India. He has an interesting story.
“When I was growing up, we talked and watched lot of cricket. My grandparents hailed from India and obviously my uncles and aunts supported India. My cousins, however, were diehard Sri Lankan supporters. So when India played Sri Lanka, the older generation wanted India to win and us wanted Sri Lanka to win. In the 1980s, India were world champions and they dominated. So often we were in the losing side,” he says.
“But it all changed after 1996. The greatest satisfaction was seeing Indian bowlers being hit to all corners by Aravinda de Silva and Sanath Jayasuriya. So we started giving it back to our uncles. Soon even they were in awe of the likes of Jayasuriya and Aravinda. Gradually they converted and became Sri Lankan supporters.”
India has been a massive strength to Sri Lanka off the field. India along with Pakistan pushed for Sri Lanka’s Test status from the 1970s onwards. Sri Lanka Cricket’s biggest income generator remains tours by India and in the last decade the Board of Control for Cricket in India has been extremely generous. Since 2005, Indian team has toured Sri Lanka on eight occasions.
Sri Lankan skipper Angelo Mathews, coach Marvan Atapattu and star batsman Kumar Sangakkara have expressed concerns about the team’s preparations ahead of the current tour, but you can be assured that they will be at their best during the contest. There’s nothing worse than losing to the big brother.
A group of Sri Lankan students studying in Bangladesh turned up for the epic Asia Cup encounter between India and Pakistan in Dhaka dressed up similarly. A closer look at the words on the back of their t-shirts was interesting. It said, ‘We support two teams. Sri Lanka and anyone playing India.’
The joy of beating big brother is the greatest in all sports.
