Sri Lanka's astonishing comeback in World Cup

Sri Lanka cricket team's promising comeback in the Twenty20 World Cup in London -- after surviving the deadly attack in Lahore -- is amazing.

Sri Lanka had not played a game since March 3 -- when the gunmen attacked the team convoy en route to a Test in Lahore where eight police men died and Thilan Samaraweera got severely injured.

"I feel the numbness after being shot," Samaraweera recalls. "The first week was terrible. I was scarred even by the sounds of firecrackers."

"Life moves on, cricket goes on," said Kumar Sangakkara. "The guys have realised that and they are prepared mentally now."

Aftershocks couldn't hold Sri Lanka on the backseat and they shone again in World Cup with all the courage and desire they had.

"Everyone has recovered after what happened in Lahore," coach Trevor Bayliss said. "We are back to normal. It's good that they've been playing cricket. When we get into the bus, we'll be a bit nervous, I guess."

Most of the Sri Lanka team members got the good experience and practice in Indian Premier League (IPL), which was held in South Africa last month. Captain Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene from Kings XI Punjab, Sanath Jayasuriya and Lasith Malinga from Mumbai Indians, Tillekeratne Dilshan from Delhi Daredevils and Muttiah Muralitharan from Chennai Super Kings got all the Twenty20 experience. The team has many experienced players, complemented with a few young players, such as uncapped all-rounder Isuru Udanamm, who took 16 wickets in the domestic Twenty20 competition.

Sri Lanka has dropped experienced bowlers like Chaminda Vaas and Dilhara Fernando but Lasith Malinga came back stronger than ever before. The coach said the gradual build-up in workload will help Malinga to improve.

"It's good to see him back in the side after a serious injury and, hopefully with a lot of cricket coming our way, he'll be fully fit," Bayliss said. "It's an ideal situation where he's now required to bowl just four overs. May be One-day International cricket is the next best thing for him, and then probably Test cricket," he said, at the start of the T20 World Cup.

Orthodox or unorthodox -- this is the beauty of Twenty20 cricket -- Sri Lanka are using both with lot of success. Mahela Jayawardene's reverse-sweep off the back of the bat during their World Twenty20 Super Eights against New Zealand at Trent Bridge on Tuesday is one of their shows. Tillekaratne Dilshan hit an extra-ordinary shot where he goes down on one knee as if to sweep only to lever the ball past the wicket-keeper's head.

West Indies coach John Dyson, who ought to be credited with the creation of these kind of strokes said: "This is something I've worked with Trevor Bayliss on. He was saying that Dyson used to do that in Australia. He used to tap it with the other side because he couldn't sweep. A lot of teams bring third man up these days and I thought I'll give it a go. Hopefully it will keep working."

Sri Lanka bowlers are not excluded in unorthodoxy either; bowlers like 'mystery' Ajantha Mendis, Muttiah Muralitharan and Lasith Malinga have become the biggest threat for other teams' batsmen.

Mendis, who puzzles batsmen by turning the ball both ways with one visible action, has so far picked up 11 wickets in the tournament, just one behind Pakistan seamer Umar Gul's 12 wickets haul.

Muralitharan has five wickets, while Malinga has picked up ten with a mix of toe-crushing yorkers and slower deliveries. Muralitharan, who is the highest wicket-taker in both One-day Internationals as well as Tests, can easily make a batsman's head spin with his 'doosra'.

"Murali can turn the ball on any surface as you can see," Jayawardene said. "And if Ajantha sticks to his plans, we have a fairly good chance of going all the way."

Kumar Sangakkara was excited about having a bowler like Mendis in the side.

"Ajantha was brilliant. He is very difficult to read and he has an attacking mindset. It's a great ability to have," Sangakkara said. "He has a great leg break, but he varies his deliveries depending on whether or not he is bowling to a left or right-hander."

Altogether as a team these are times of renewal for Sri Lanka as a nation, eliminating the sad memories of bitter and ugly civil war history and there is no doubt what-so-ever that Sri Lanka cricket deserves the credit, being unbeaten in ICC World Cup Twenty20 in England and looking forward.