Richards ‘murdered’ us – Aravinda

by Rex Clementine

After three successive World Cups in the seaming English conditions, Sri Lanka went into the fourth edition of the tournament with quite a bit of optimism as the ICC Cricket World Cup was held for the first time in the sub-continent.

They played the curtain-raiser of the tournament in Hyderabad and came agonizingly close to beat Pakistan before going down by 15 runs.

A week later they played West Indies in Karachi and ended up chasing leather as West Indies posted a then World Cup record of 360 for four in 50 overs.

Ravi Ratnayake was on a hat-trick after dismissing Carlisle Best and Richie Richardson off successive balls and then mayhem followed as Sir Viv Richards walked in at number four.

Richards went onto smash 181 in 125 balls hitting the Sri Lankan bowlers to all parts of the park.

"Viv was one of my idols. Not just one of my idols, but the idol. I must say that this is one knock that I really enjoyed watching although it was against us. To be frank that’s the only time I have enjoyed someone batting against us," Aravinda de Silva, who was playing just his second World Cup game on that day reminisced.

"Watching Viv was exciting. He just took everyone apart. I remember standing at long-on and Don Anurasiri was at long-off and we just saw the ball sailing over our heads at a regular basis. That was some hitting. You can’t compare anyone today with Viv and I haven’t seen a better batsman."

Richards actually took 62 balls for his half-century, but reached his hundred in 97 balls and the last 81 runs came from just 33 balls.

Ratnayake’s dreams of a hat-trick were not only shattered, two of his overs leaked 44 runs while Richards was batting.

"It had all to do with his arrogance and the confidence he had in his ability. One thing is that he was playing for a side that dominated world cricket, that helps, but if you look at some of these top players they perform when the sides have done well because there’s less pressure. But Richards often did it when chips were down and he did it consistently, that’s the hallmark of a great batsman," de Silva recalled.

Sri Lanka suffered a humiliating 191 run defeat and never recovered from the onslaught going onto lose all six games in the tournament.

Aravinda de Silva’s comprehensive interview on his World Cup experiences will appear in ’50 Memorable World Moments’ shortly.