Muttiah Muralitharan: Injury to Angelo Mathews, dew factor cost us World Cup 2011

Muralitharan: Injury to Mathews, dew factor cost us World Cup 2011

Sri Lanka‘s former spinner, Muttiah Muralitharan, slammed Arjuna Ranatunga‘s claims of the team losing the World Cup 2011 to India on purpose. Ranatunga, World Cup-winning captain, had earlier demanded an inquiry on the Sri Lankan team for their ordinary performance on the night of the final at Wankhede Stadium. However, Muralitharan blamed ‘other factors’ for the defeat and revealed there was ‘no instruction’ to come second. Sri Lanka opted to bat and posted challenging 274 for 6, riding on the back of century from Mahela Jayawardene. However, they were stunned by splendid performances from Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni. As a result, India lifted the World Cup after a gap of 28 years.

“India was the first best team and ours was the second best team in the tournament. We had a good opportunity to win in the final, but two things happened. I had a groin injury in the semi final and Angelo Mathews, who was among runs was completely out (final) because he was injured. The batsmen were scoring runs but the middle order batsmen didn’t click in few matches and the selectors made 3-4 changes and it was far than a regular team”, Muralitharan was quoted as saying in chat-athon, a show by Santosh Menon.

Murali added, “The senior players and the selectors were scared of chasing the target and thought of batting first. But in my mind was to bat second because I thought India could chase any target and this was intimated to the team-management. This I had told to them with my previous tour experience of dew factor. But Sanga (Kumar Sangakkara) said he has been promised by the match referee that they would spray the chemicals and no dew threat to the final. Within 15 overs dew came and they could do nothing. There was no match-fixing but Mathews’ injury, miscalculation (on dew factor) cost us the World Cup final. But we can’t take away credit from India”.