Sri Lanka have won the ICC Cricket World Cup in 1996, the ICC Champions Trophy in 2002 (Co-champions with India), have been runners up in the 2007 Cricket World Cup, and have been runners up in the ICC World Twenty20 in 2009.
Early years
Ceylon, as the country was known before 1972, played its first first-class match under that name against MCC at Nomads Ground, Victoria Park, Colombo in 1926–27, losing by an innings. [1] The team's first win came against Patiala at Dhruve Pandove Stadium in 1932–33. [2] The Ceylonese side competed in the M. J. Gopalan Trophy games from the 1950s, through the change of name to Sri Lanka, well into the 1970s.
Test status and beyond
Gained Test Status in 1981 and first played a Test Match in 1982
Won the 1996 Cricket World Cup hosted by India, Sri Lanka & Pakistan
Semi Finalists in the 2003 Cricket World Cup hosted by South Africa
Runners up of the 2007 World Cup hosted by the West Indies
As of October 2007, the Sri Lankan team has played 170 Test matches, winning 29.41%, losing 37.05% and drawing 33.52% of its games.[3] Sri Lanka hold the current records for the highest total score in all three main formats of the game.
Sri Lankan cricket's greatest moment undoubtedly came during the aforementioned 1996 World Cup, when they defeated the top-ranked Australian team in the Final. Sri Lanka's game style over the course of the series revolutionized One Day International Cricket, and was characterized by highly aggressive batting in the first fifteen overs of the innings in order to take advantage of the fielding restrictions imposed during this period. This strategy has since become a hallmark of One Day International cricket.
Sri Lankan cricket supporters were once again thrilled by the team's tremendous performance at the NatWest Series in 2006. Although as a whole the team missed its captain, Marvan Atapattu, and also Muttiah Muralitharan, nevertheless Sanath, together with Upul Tharanga, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Russel Arnold, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, Dilhara Fernando and Farveez Maharoof all contributed substantially.
Sri Lanka's performance during the 5–0 whitewash, England's heaviest home defeat in 13 years, was, some sloppy fielding in a couple of games aside, consistently excellent. Sanath Jayasuriya was both the Man of the Match and Man of the Series. They also made the highest score in One Day International Cricket of 443 against The Netherlands in the following series.
2009 shooting incident
Main article: 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka national cricket team
On March 3, 2009, the Sri Lankan team's convoy was attacked in Lahore, Pakistan by gunmen. This led to the death of five policemen and injuries to seven cricketers and a member of the coaching team.[4] The team was on its way to the Gaddafi Stadium where they were scheduled to begin the third day of the Second Test. After the incident the test match was called off by the Sri Lankan Cricket board. Sri Lanka had agreed to tour Pakistan, replacing India who refused to do so citing security concerns.[5]
Injured
Thilan Samaraweera
Kumar Sangakkara
Tharanga Paranavitana
Ajantha Mendis
Chaminda Vaas
Mahela Jayawardene
Suranga Lakmal
Paul Farbrace
