what was the reason sri lanka became so good around 1996?

[SaeedAnwar]

Sri lanka's rise was really sudden in 1996, i mean just few years before or even one year before that they were a pretty terrible team. so what was the exact reason they rose suddenly as a really strong side both in Odis and Tests? was it Ranatuga's leadership or something else? and also how do other weak sides like Bangladesh, Zimbabwe learn from sri lanka's success?

[DingDong]

saeed why are u so obsessed with sri lanka u've started threads about ranatunga, mahanama and some other random sri lankan player whose name i cant remember just in the last 2 weeks

[DingDong]

but it is a good question

and the answer is murali

[NUFAN]

They had a team full of players who new exactly how to perform each individual role.

They had proper batsman down to 7, they had aggressive openers, and Gurusinghe, De Silva and Ranatunga formed a very solid middle order.

Murali and the other spinner, usually Kumara Dharmasena were very good.

The coach should be giving credit also for getting Kalu as the opener, one of the first power hitting keepers to open in ODIs.

[Matt79]

All that helped, but Muralitharan was probably the major factor.

[mohammad16]

The answer is tremendous balance in their side. I think the single most important proponent of Sri Lankas success was Aravinda De Silva, he could counter attack even when Jayasuriya and Kalu lost their way early. Aravinda would also attack in a very risk free manner. Ranatunga would always play level headed aswell. This meant the likes of Jayasuriya were even more intent on taking on bowlers.

Their bowling obviously had Murali but Vaas always struck blows early.

[SaeedAnwar]

^ true, but i am amazed at how these players improved so much, i mean guys like Jayasuriya, Rantunga, Desilva, Mahanma, Gurushina etc... were all playing cricket since the 80's and with the exception of desilva none of these players were good in the 80's up until in the mid 90's.

[SaeedAnwar]

Originally Posted by DingDong

saeed why are u so obsessed with sri lanka u've started threads about ranatunga, mahanama and some other random sri lankan player whose name i cant remember just in the last 2 weeks

I am in love with the sri lankan team and i wana marry them, happy?

[Himannv]

I think the coach had a pretty big part to play in it. They had a lot of balance in that squad which was part of the plan specially for the WC. Lots of plans were devised which mostly paid off.

Gurusinha played a bigger role in there that most people gave him credit for. When wickets had fallen too early, he steadied the ship which allowed players like Aravinda to come to the fore. He wasn't the best batsman, but he grinded out results and made sure the quick runs that others made didn't go to waste.

Also Sanath and Kalu started the whole attack the bowlers in the early overs thing which at that time wasn't very common as there was still a test match mentality of seeing off the new ball. Quite often it paid off and gave us good starts.

The bowling was good even before that. Our spinners were performing exceptionally well and it wasn't just Murali. I remember in tests we used to play just one fast bowler on many occations with 3 spin options. Our spinners were always tough to get away.

Bowlers were doing pretty well but I think our batting was pretty strong with key players in good form enabling us to chase games well. We always had a relish for a chase those days. Either Sanath or de Silva always managed to score which made it easier to win as those two were scoring extremely quickly and they have the ability of dominating bowling attacks with relative ease.

[Xuhaib]

I think from beggining of 90's SL was constantly threatening to be a good team and by mid 90's everything finally just fell inline.

[Migara]

Simple reason. Everybody hit form of their lives or pretty close to it during 1995 - 98 period. Then the back up players were getting in to form in A tours.

[stumpski]

I thought Sri Lankan spinners were pretty dire before Murali tbh, if anything their strength was in pace with guys like De Mel, Ratnayake, Ratnayeke and so on. Asoka de Silva and Don Anurasiri were hardly names to strike terror into the opposition batsmen. DS de Silva was pretty good, but already in his mid-30s when they started playing Tests.

The Vaas/Murali combination was the important factor I think, after all it's bowlers who win matches and while people often talk about pace pairs and spin twins a pace + spin combo can be just as effective. While Vaas may not have been quite in the McGrath class there's an obvious parallel to be drawn with the emergence of McGrath and Warne around the same time.

[Himannv]

Originally Posted by stumpski

I thought Sri Lankan spinners were pretty dire before Murali tbh, if anything their strength was in pace with guys like De Mel, Ratnayake, Ratnayeke and so on. Asoka de Silva and Don Anurasiri were hardly names to strike terror into the opposition batsmen. DS de Silva was pretty good, but already in his mid-30s when they started playing Tests.

Sri Lanka had quite a few decent spinners in their ranks. Not exactly wicket takers but they could certainly keep the batsmen busy.

Warnaweera, Dharmasena, DS, Ajit de Silva, Kaluperuma, Don Anurasiri, all were pretty decent spinners but Murali, like Warne, was simply one of those rare bowlers who you come across once in a lifetime.

However that list is far from shabby by any means although like most other players associated with SL their stats weren't the best in the world to read. Didn't change the fact that they were pretty good bowlers though.

EDIT: Also forgot to mention the batsmen who could bowl a bit. Aravinda and Sanath did quite a decent job with the ball when they were needed.

[Migara]

Among pre-Murali spinners Warnaweera was the best. His arrogance and abrasive personality cost him 25 - 30 test matches. SL lost lot of home tests due to terrorist activities, and this impact badly on spin bowling. Warnaweera was good enough to take 150 wickets of 35 matches averaging in high twenties.