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Sri Lanka made a jovial April fool of West Indies by jesting them by 113 runs. Played at Providence Stadium, Guyana, the Super 8 match between Sri Lanka and West Indies was a strikingly contrast display of aggressive cricket versus lame cricket. Mysteriously enough, West Indies never showed a semblance of spark neither in their batting or bowling or fielding.

Early loss of Tharanga by Powel and Sangakkara by Bradshaw and the cautious ball-handling by Jayasuriya marked a good commecement for West Indies. Windies with their aweful fielding and a dis-interested captaincy let Lankans off the hook. Fumbles, dropped chances, wayward throws, wides and lazy body language all contributed to what resulted in a rampage by World Sanath Jayasuriya. It wasn’t late Jayasuriya opened his wings and flew all over Guyana with no adversary in sight. Jayasuriya bombarded 115 runs sprinkled with lots of flakes. Mahela Jayawardene took the onus of saving the other side and manipulated 82 runs. He and Sanath shared 183 grand runs which included 5 sixes and 12 fours. Dilshan and Chamara Silva also scored 39 and 23 respectively. When Sri Lanka finished their innings after 50 overs, Windies were already looking wearily at the mega target of 304.

Chris Gayle’s batting style told it all. He was looking so scared and un-easy, it wasn’t hard to predict the results of the match. His departure was no surprise to anyone. His misery lasted for 21 balls in which he somehow scored 10 runs. Dwayne Bravo was promoted up the order but in vain. He went back after 21 runs after not-so-convincing knock. Shiv Chanderpaul again took the brunt and made 76 runs and those included 5 sixes. As we are watching perhaps the last of Brian Charles Lara, he isn’t interested to show us off his strokes of brilliance. He went out with just 2 runs in bag. Sarwan got 44 runs and the rest was just a lost homework.

The Sri Lankan bowlers baffled the Windies with their superb bowling display. Vaas, Malinga and Muralitharan took 2 wickets each and Jayasuriya after a master blaster with bat took 3 sparkling wickets. It was his day, indeed.