Waiting to greet and garland these magnificent men will be the effervescent sporting minister S. B. Dissanayake, his officials, cricket board officials and thousands of cricket fans who enjoyed and danced the jig when the Lankans made the Englishmen come a poor second in the Emirates Trophy at Lord's one off test at Foster's Oval in London on Monday.
The cricketers who won the World Cup and now beat the English in their own game have brought fame and honour not only to the game but the country as well. With limited facilities and exposure the cricketers have done wonders and thrilled the crowd.
Most entertaining
They have now replaced the Windies as the most exciting and entertaining team in the limited over as well as the established game.
These sterling achievements prompted Professor G. L. Pieris to say that the cricketers with their stunning achievements have helped the state in all international forums. The Professor said this at the function arranged by the Cricket Board to honour illustrious personalities who had done much for the game at the Oberoi recently.
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga who is a keen follower of the deeds of our cricketers and who was attending NAM in Durban, South Africa was quick to phone in a message of congratulations no sooner she heard of our cricketing heroes' success in London.
Frivolous allegations
The success of Ranatunga and his men are all the more creditable when one considers the tactics of the critics who tried to unsettle the team by levelling frivolous allegations. Ranatunga was their 'bite'. But that he finally silenced and hit his critics by winning not only the Emirates Trophy but also the Cornhill Test speaks volumes for his qualities to rally his men to war and triumph in adversity.
While success was achieved by a concerted team effort the men who helped rewrite the record books - Sanath Jayasuriya, Aravinda de Silva, Muttiah Muralitharan and the skipper will be remembered for their stellar performances.
Sanath Jayasuriya inflicted wounds on the Brits with a dashing double hundred and then in the second innings when England skipper Alec Stewart was urging his bowlers to adopt negative tactics which to say the least was an utter disgrace, Jayasuriya added salt to their wounds the way he screwed up Cork and Fraser hitting them for sixes that sailed over like missiles.
Crawling
Together with Aravinda de Silva, Jayasuriya had the English attack on their knees and crawling, almost begging forgiveness. And as if that was not enough humilation, off spinning sensation Muralitheran had them like jumping cat fish struggling for survival. But death was not long in coming for the England batsmen stung by the venomous spin of the spider Muralitheran.
Clever captaincy
All this was possible by the cool, calculated and clever captaincy of Ranatunga. Even the British media took him to task for asking England in. At the end even they had to acknowledge his genius and when the game was won they were singing hosannas to him.
Our greetings also go out to coach Roy Dias and manager Ranjit Fernando and physio Alex Kountouri who helped in moulding a bunch of brilliant individual cricketers into one attacking force.