http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Muttiah-Muralitharan-c78157 feels Sri Lanka can win the ICC World Cup 2011
Muttiah Muralitharan, the legendary spin wizard from http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758, while expressing his thoughts about the upcoming mega cricketing event of the ICC World Cup 2011, stated that he had complete faith in his team which was capable of repeating the winning history
of 1996.
In 1996, Sri Lanka had won the World Cup under the charismatic and confident leadership of the formidable batsman http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Arjuna-Ranatunga-c45447. Most importantly, amid the team’s consistent performance, it has ended as the runner-ups in the mega event organized at the
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 in 2007.
Muralitharan feels that his team is perfectly competent to accomplish the goal which they were unable to achieve in 1999, 2003 and 2007. Dwelling upon past memories, he said, “The day we won the cup in 1996 was the happiest day. It’s been 15 years since
1996 and we can’t dwell in the past. In 2003 we entered semis and in 2007 we entered finals. We had good teams but we could not win the cup.” He also went on to mention that this time the team had a very good chance of claiming the Championship.
Sri Lankan Skipper Kumar Sangakkara is of the view that since Sri Lanka is co-hosting the upcoming World Cup, the team will have a competitive advantage over their opponents. Expressing his feelings he said, “I think every Cricket World Cup is a great opportunity
to win it no matter where you play. This one playing in our neck of the woods probably gives us a slighter edge than the other teams.”
This year, Sri Lanka has added two new venues for the World Cup in Kandy and Hambantota. Changes have also been made to the Premadasa Stadium pitch to increase the competitiveness of the matches that are to be played there.
The Sri Lankan team has not been able to play at these two new stadiums, as they have been under construction. Thus, the players will have little to no experience with the nature of the new pitches, potentially exposing this weakness to their opponents.
While expressing his views, Sangakkara thinks that there was no point in showing much concern over the issue, as the mental approach of the team was rather positive. He feels that the team should not contemplate about the nature of wickets and to remain
focused on the performance.
It will be interesting to see how the different teams from around the world are able to adjust their strategies on the new pitches in Sri Lanka. The highly unpredictable and competitive nature of the Sri Lankan team promises to entertain and delight the
fans during the upcoming World Cup.
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