Cricket, as they say, is a funny old game. Barely a fortnight after being booed off this very stadium following a humbling 3-0 drubbing by England, Sri Lanka were hoisted on shoulders and hailed as heroes on Monday night as they sent Australia packing from the World Cup with a performance that had nerve, nous and no shortage of swagger.

Kandy, which had turned hostile earlier this month, was suddenly awash with jubilation. Fans burned the midnight oil, firecrackers lit up the hill capital and chants echoed long after the winning run was scored. There is no sweeter music in Sri Lankan cricket than the sound of Australia being knocked out of a tournament.

Australia had come out all guns blazing. At 100 for no loss in eight overs, with the Power Play carnage extending into the middle phase, the former champions looked set to bat Sri Lanka out of the contest. It was leather on willow and Sri Lanka were staring down the barrel.

Then the tide turned.

The spinners applied the handbrake on a surface that offered just enough grip, bowling with discipline and clever changes of pace to drag things back from the brink. The squeeze was relentless. Boundaries dried up, risks multiplied and panic crept in.

At the death, Dushmantha Chameera was ice-cool under pressure. Nailing his yorkers and varying his pace cleverly, he denied Australia the late surge that so often proves decisive. What followed was a collapse of dramatic proportions, six wickets for 21 runs, as Australia were bundled out for 180, a total that looked well below par given their flying start.

“We knew this was a 200 wicket,” Pathum Nissanka told reporters. “When Australia were bowled out for 180, we believed we could chase it down. But we had to be watchful and plan well.”

What followed was a run chase for the ages.

Knockout games against Australia are rarely strolls in the park. More often than not, they are arm-wrestles that go down to the wire. But Sri Lanka got home with two overs to spare, a statement win carved out with composure rather than brute force.

For years, Sri Lanka have bemoaned the absence of a power-hitter in the mould of David Miller, Hardik Pandya or Tim David, men who can clear the ropes at will. Nissanka, however, proved that timing can trump muscle.

His hundred was worth its weight in gold.

Elegant rather than explosive, he peppered the boundary with five sixes of the highest quality, each one greeted by a roar that rolled down from the Pallekele stands. The pick of the lot was a reverse-swept six off the left-arm spinner that had audacity written all over it.

“I loved that reverse-swept six,” Nissanka said. “I knew that area was vacant but you had to execute well. I’m glad it paid off.”

It was the first hundred of this World Cup and a landmark knock for the 27-year-old, who became the first Sri Lankan to score two T20I centuries.

“Scoring a hundred in a World Cup has always been my dream,” he added. “I’m glad I achieved that today.”

If Nissanka was the architect, Kusal Mendis was the steady hand on the tiller. His mature approach at the top ensured Sri Lanka did not lose wickets in clusters, and his game awareness, particularly regarding the dew, proved crucial.

“Kusal batted so well and told me the dew would come in,” Nissanka said. “We had to make sure we didn’t take undue risks. We planned well and are happy to be through to the second round.”

That clarity of thought, so conspicuously absent during the England series, was evident throughout the chase. Sri Lanka rotated strike smartly, picked their moments to attack and refused to be drawn into a slugfest.

The victory ensured Sri Lanka became the first team from Group ‘B’ to seal passage into the second round, where sterner tests await in the form of England, Pakistan and New Zealand.

Rex Clementine at Pallekele

Ganuka Fernando and Yuhansa Peiris reached the quarter finals of the J30 ITF Week 4 tournament as they won their second round matches in Colombo on Tuesday.

In the boys’ second round encounter Ganuka Fernando beat Chris Jovan Gubza of Austria 6-0, 6-4 to seal his quarter-final place.

For her place Yuhansa beat Ai Shin Huang of Taipei 7-6, 6-2 in the second round.

They are set to compete in the quarter finals today.

“I think that was the best ball of my career.” Crishan Kalugamage beams as he recalls bamboozling Dipendra Singh Airee with a sharp-turning googly – the second of his three wickets that set up Italy’s historic maiden T20 World Cup win.

The celebrations from that victory against Nepal went long into the evening. As Kalugamage will relate, the Italian contingent’s road to their first World Cup hasn’t been an easy one, and the emotion was visible on the 34-year old’s face.

“I personally have no words to explain how I felt after the game,” Kalugamage tells Cricbuzz. “It was very emotional for us because after a lot of sacrifice and hard work, we got that first victory. This is a dream come true for me. Before coming to the World Cup my goal was just to get the first wicket. I’m really happy and very emotional.”

Behind Italy’s matchwinner is the story of a young Sri Lankan cricket nut who ended up finding his way with the sport in a country detached from it.

Kalugamage was 16 when he moved to Italy with his brothers – a few years after his parents had already made the switch in search of better economic opportunities. His father took up work in a factory that specialised in painting yachts, and Kalugamage admits finding life difficult in the initial few years, coming to grips with cultural, culinary and linguistic barriers.

Prior to that was a childhood in the 90s in Marawila, a coastal town in the North Western Province of Sri Lanka. It was a time when the country boasted one of its finest generations of cricketers. The 1996 World Cup triumph is a moment that Kalugamage has vague memories of – he was just four years old at the time – but it would have a significant impact on his life.

“I didn’t watch the matches because we didn’t have a TV,” Kalugamage says. “I heard about it on the radio with my grandfather. After that I watched every game Sri Lanka played. I really loved watching the Sri Lankan batters – Aravinda de Silva, Sanath Jayasuriya and after that, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene.”

Soon enough, Kalugamage tried his hand at the sport too. A student of Marawila’s St. Xavier’s College, he was a part of the Under-13 setup under the watchful eyes of his coach Daminda Maliyaratne, whom he credits as a major factor behind being a professional cricketer today. Watching videos of Shane Warne drove him towards wrist spin, though upon migrating to Italy, that took a backseat.

“When I came to Italy, for the first four, five years I took part in athletics as a long jumper and 100-metre sprinter. I wasn’t very tall then but after taking up athletics, I grew taller,” Kalugamage narrates. That led to a switch in approach – he took up fast bowling as a tennis-ball cricketer, even as he was uncertain over his future in the sport in a land known for football and not cricket.

A cricket team was soon formed in 2013 in Lucca, where he plied his trade as a fast bowler. The game began to spread and Kalugamage played for multiple clubs over the next couple of years. In 2015 he moved to Roma Cricket Club, whom he continues to represent.

He continued his journey as a fast bowler, and while the thought of returning to Sri Lanka for greener pastures wasn’t an option with his family in Italy, Kalugamage did have a pitstop there in 2019, bowling to some of the big household Sri Lankan names.

“I had a chance to play for Kandy Customs. I played a few T20 matches in the Division One Premier League as a fast bowler. I played some List A matches too. My debut was against Tamil Union Cricket Club who had Kamindu Mendis, Jeevan Mendis and Isuru Udana. I bowled the first over and got a wicket,” Kalugamage says with a wide smile.

With the tribulations of fast bowling came a streak of injuries, casting a doubt over his future in the sport. Rekindling his roots with his first calling proved to be a wise move. “One day I tried bowling leg spin at my club and it worked. My coach Prabath Ekneligoda (also the founder of Roma Cricket Club) told me to start bowling leg spin again since it came naturally to me.”

[Cricbuzz]