Published: Jul 14, 2017, 02:45 PM (IST)
Edited: Jul 14, 2017, 02:57 PM (IST)
Former Sri Lanka World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga has made a shocking revelation about the ICC 2011 World Cup Final. According to Ranatunga, the India vs Sri Lanka final at Wankhede Stadium was fixed, and that Kumar Sangakkara’s men deliberately played below par. Sri Lanka had made as many as four changes from the semi-finals winning side against New Zealand. Ranatunga who was commentating for ICC at that time, suggested that an investigation should take place before he himself reveals the facts. Sri Lanka ended up losing the final to India by 6 wickets. BCCI expresses gratitude to CAC members over Team IND head coach selection
As per a report on CricBuzz, Ranatunga was quoted: “Investigations should be done on the World Cup final where Sri Lanka lost to India. The ministers who are talking now need to make sure their actions speak louder than their words. The time has come now for these players to confess on what happened and investigations to be done … I was also in India at the time and I was heartbroken after the loss while I also had doubts about it. I will open up about all this very soon with proof. Therefore if you are investigating, this is what you need to investigate about.”
Ranatunga has recently been in a verbal spat with Sangakkara on his remark on him and Mahela Jayawardene that the pair has failed to groom youngsters for the future: “In my career, when I reached a stage where I could take up responsibility, people like Duleep [Mendis] and Roy [Dias] dropped down the batting order and gave Aravinda [de Silva] and myself the opportunity to bat higher up the order.”
“That made life much easier for us. Then we did the same when guys like Sanga (Kumar Sangakkara) and Mahela (Jayawardene) came along. But unfortunately that tradition wasn’t followed. Sanga always batted at number three and Mahela always batted at number four, he concluded.
