Sri Lanka kayo Windies in Kenya

To put this as tersely as possible, Sri Lanka, asked to take first strike by stand-in Windies skipper Sherwin Campbell, totalled 287/6 in their allotted 50 overs on the back of a superb century by Gunawardene (132). In reply, the West Indies were bowled out for 149, giving Lanka the game by 108 runs.

And the only reason the Windies didn't lose by a bigger margin was that Lanka, once it got through the top four batsmen, treated the rest of the proceedings like it was an extended sun-bathing session, a good chance to run around a bit and get all the kinks out of their system.

An exhaustive report on this game would be pointless, given that it was a total mismatch. The Windies were in the game only for 10 overs, right at the start, when Mervyn Dillon and Nixon McLean bowled a superb opening spell. There was bounce, seam, good thinking, all coming together to torment the Lankan batsmen. A frustrated Jayasuriya touched one through to the keeper; Marvan Atapattu, the vice captain and man in form, couldn't get his elbow out of line of a lifter and the richochet hit off stump.

But that was it. The Windies just didn't have what it took to sustain that effort. Laurie Williams and Kerry Jeremy were, at their very best, pedestrian medium pacers. Marlon Samuels and Mahendra Nagamootoo were described as off spin and leg spin respectively, but you wouldn't have known that from watching them bowl. And with fielding that started out bad (Campbell dropped Jayasuriya as early as the second over, at second slip) and descended to the farcical (Williams at one point, with Gunawardene stranded at the other end, failed to gather the most straightforward of throws, and ended up pillow pillow who's got the pillow, while Gunawardene ambled back into his crease in leisurely fashion), there really was no point to the entire exercise, really.

However, the Lankan batting -- especially Jayawardene, Gunawardene and Arnold -- need mentioning. You might be facing dud bowlers, but you still have to get the runs on the tins. In fact, some top cricketers have told me that it is harder to score big against bad bowling, since it is so much more difficult to keep the concentration level high.

That is why Jayawardene, who played himself in and then blazed into some scintillant strokeplay; Gunawardene, who after a blazing start realised that a first ever ODI century was his for the taking, and settled down to work his way to the mark in a sensible fashion, never allowing the run-rate to drop too much; and Arnold, who played an electric little knock, were all worth applauding.

This Lankan batting side has a very formidable look about it -- in fact, this early in the tournament, I'm tempted to name them joint favourites, along with Australia, to take the title. What is nice about the lineup is the array of strokeplayers, and just the right element of sanity in there as well. Atapattu, for instance, brings sanity after the early depradations Gunawardene and Jayasuriya are capable of. Jayawardene is ebullient at four; Sangakarra, playing at number four and in the side for his batting alone while Kaluwitharana dons the gloves, is a nice mix of aggression and sane defence when required; Arnold is the guy with as many gears as the situation requires, and Kaluwitharana is the berserker you need coming in at the death. Further, the fact that Sangakarra is a competent gloveman in his own right means that Lanka can, if it requires an extra bowler, drop Kalu without compromising on its wicket-keeping standards.

The Windies had one slim hope on the chase. That was for Sherwin Campbell and stand-in opener (while on that, almost the entire Windies team seems to be standing in for someone else) Courtney Browne needed to bat out the first 15, and take the score to around 70 or thereabouts without loss of wickets at that point. Do that, and they would have seen off the three Lankan seamers, and given Lara and Hinds, their two best batsmen, something to work with.

Vaas actually helped the Windies cause with a rare bad opening spell, too short too wide too often, and Campbell capitalised with some blazing shots square on the off. Browne, though devastating when you put something short, is a positive embarassment to anything pitched up, and here, pretty much the first ball he got on a length had him swishing and edging for Kalu to take.

Campbell waited for Lara to get to the middle and promptly committed suicide. His push to cover was straight to the fielder, so there is no telling what was in his mind when he took off for the single. The fielder was quick to the ball, his underarm flick at the non-striker's end was accurate, and that was it for Campbell, leading the side in the absence of the indisposed Jimmy Adams.

Could Lara do it? Could he, hell -- his body language was that of a struggler, and barring a savage swish outside off that fetched him a four, there was nothing in his brief tenure at the crease to raise hopes of any miracle. Zoysa took him out in clinical fashion -- nice delivery pitching off, seaming away just enough to take the edge of a tentative bat, through to the keeper.

From there on, it was all downhill -- Marlon Samuels touched a shortish ball on leg stump through, Wavell Hinds shaped well and then clipped one off his pads to Jayawardene at deep midwicket, Windies were 89/6, and....

True, there was a bit of a revival from there on -- but the numbers are illusory. The Lankans gave up ocne Hinds left the scene, and the likes of Nagamootoo and Williams took the opportunity to put up some runs on the board and impress the selectors back home.

It was all pretty tragic, really. I mean, these are the West Indies we are talking about. A once proud cricketing nation, reduced to shuffle-footed embarassment. It is all well to talk of missing the now retired Ambrose and the resting Walsh, but the Windies cannot depend on Walsh forever. The question facing them is, where are the replacements going to come from?

It is a question they need to answer in a hurry -- somehow, without the West Indian flamboyance, the international cricket scene is as impoverished as say soccer would be, if Brazil decided to have an off year or two.

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