Lankan Lion has Kiwi in breakfast, Kangaroo for dinner?

(Murali the Magician, again the wrecker-in-chief)


Australia is not the team to step and skid on banana skin. That’s for lesser cricketing mortals, like India or Pakistan. Even South Africa. And thanks God, finally there seems a team with the wherewithal and the guile to upset the Aussie applecart.

Lankan triumph against New Zealand in the first World Cup semifinal conveys the Lankans are here for business. You simply don’t have a better balanced team in the World Cup. Not even Australia – with no slow bowler of worth in their ranks -- can boast of such combination.

The batting order looks a never ending one with each of them having distinction either in the bail-out act or the belting act. And his yesterday’s ton meant Mahela Jayawardene too came to the party and the timing could not have been better.

The bowling is potent enough to bring disorder to any batting order. Australian bats, provided they get past South Africa today, would struggle to see the ball coming off Lasith Malinga’s hands. Vaas may have lost couple of yards but no waning in guile – remember how he and his partner-in-conspiracy Sangakkara stumped Lara? Dilhara Fernando has also developed into an intelligent bowler and he put it on display in that last over against England.

Also, the mere sight of Muralitharan licking his lips and tossing the ball up at the end of his bowling mark is enough to send shivers down the spine. All those innuendoes and cat-calls from the Australian gallery are still fresh in his mind and Murali always loved to sizzle in sizzlers.

Come Saturday, the Lions would be ready to have Kangaroo for dinner.