March 17, 1996 is a date that is etched into the minds of cricket fans all over the world, the day where the game's newest superpower truly emerged out of the backwaters.
Twenty-five years on, Wide World of Sports spoke to some of the key men involved from both the Australian and Sri Lankan camps about the infamous summer which eventuated in cricket's greatest ever fairytale.It was in August 1992, just months after another failed World Cup campaign, that Sri Lanka unearthed an unorthodox off-spinner from Kandy named Muttiah Muralitharan.
We felt at the time we'd taken on other sides, particularly England the previous summer in Australia, who had better fast bowling attacks than Sri Lanka did, and yet we took care of England OK. There's no doubt, as is still the case today, Australia in Australia is hard to beat. You're not going to beat Australia with fast bowling, unless you've got four good ones like the West Indies used to have, and you're probably not going to win with one or two good spinners.
Arjuna Ranatunga chats to umpire Peter Parker about the state of the ball during hte first Test in Perth Australia played games in India and Pakistan, but refused to travel to Sri Lanka during the 1996 World Cup In my opinion it was ridiculous not to go, with the trouble that Sri Lanka had gone to. They'd organised head-of-state security. Fly in on the day, and fly out again at night, which is what a lot of rugby league teams had to do in 2020. If you've got an option to play, you don't forfeit a match.
Aravinda de Silva gets his final preparations in during a practice session before the World Cup final On the day before the final, I was at practice to interview Warnie, and Ravi Shastri was there to interview Arjuna. When I got there Australia were just about to start, so I had to wait until they finished.
Arjuna Ranatunga is mobbed by his teammates after hitting the winning runs in the 1996 World Cup Final In the end, the irony of the final was that myself and Mark Waugh got off to a brisk start, in the way that Sri Lanka had started playing. We made 240, and then we knock over their two openers who had been the ones who changed the game. Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana didn't make runs in the final. They were 2-9. They actually beat us at our own game.
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