Review of International Cricket - July 2006 - A record-breaking partnership

Had someone told Sanath Jayasuriya and Roshan Mahanama in mid-1997, shortly after they had added a world record 576 in a Test, that their record would be broken in less than a decade and that too by their own compatriots, they would have laughed aloud at the joke. It is not everyday that 500-plus partnerships are witnessed in first-class cricket; leave alone Test cricket. But Mahela Jayawardene and Kumara Sangakkara proved nine years later that fact was a lot stranger than fiction. They pulverized the South Africans to add a staggering 624 in the first Test of the ongoing series. Sangakkara scored 287, and Jayawardene an outstanding 374. They achieved this distinction at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo. The Sri Lankan capital also played host to the 576-run association between Jayasuriya and Mahanama, although the venue was different – the R. Premadasa stadium. The demoralized visitors were then blown away by Muttiah Muralitharan and lost by an innings and 153 runs.

An England side missing the mighty Andrew Flintoff handed out a crushing defeat to the Pakistani tourists. The innings win came as a delight to English fans who haven’t been in a harmonious state of mind in the recent past. They are still struggling to swallow a recent statement made by Michael Vaughan, the man who wrested the Ashes away from Australia after a nineteen-year gap, wherein he declared that he may never play again due to a recurring knee problem. They will be praying that Vaughan’s fears are unfounded, and also hoping that Flintoff sorts out his fitness issues before the Ashes kicks off ‘down under’ in November.