South Africa, along with Australia were rated firm favourites to meet each other in the final even before a ball had been bowled. Both teams were eliminated from final as Australia lost to England and Sri Lanka provided the biggest shock defeating South Africa in a thrilling penultimate ball win in the last over. New Zealand and England met in the final and England emerged victorious.
Two Sri Lankan players won top honours as Pradeep Hewage (captain) was picked the best batsman of the tournament for his consistency and Prasanna Jayawardena was named the best wicketkeeper of the tournament. Malinga Bandara ended up as the second best wicket-taker (16 wickets) in the contest.
It was South Africa's solitary defeat in the tournament and with that their chances of entering the final faded away.
Sixteen teams participated in the championship and Sri Lanka were in the Bradman Group in the preliminary stage of the contest, along with Pakistan, Denmark and Ireland. The Sri Lankans lost to Pakistan but defeated Denmark and Ireland to play in the Super League the next stage of the tourney meeting New Zealand, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Sri Lanka's defeat at the hands of New Zealand dashed their hopes in playing in the final. It was our bad batting that really let us down. Chasing a seemingly easy target of 180 to win set by the Kiwis, we were, at one stage 68 for 2 with skipper Hewage holding the batting together, but with his dismissal we lost our way and managed only 138 at the end. This was insufficient to maintain a superior nett run rate,'' said Jayantha Seneviratne the cricket manager who accompanied the team.
On the fast South African tracks the medium pacemen could not impress much. Only Thomian Naren Ratwatte who is just a medium fast bowler bowled judiciously to induce some uncertainty in the batsmen's minds.
Sri Lanka's spin trio Arshad Junaid (off-spin), Malinga Bandara (right-arm leg-spin) and N. S. Rupasinghe (left-arm leg-spin) did an exceptionally good job in sharing the bowling honours.
All three - Junaid (D. S. Senanayake), Bandara (Kalutara MV) and N. S. Rupasinghe (Kingswood) from different corners of the country were treated with great care by their opponents while batting. According to Seneviratne, if these three players are given the proper guidance and nursing, they could be an asset to the country's future cricket where there seems to be a scarcity of spinners and leg-spinners in particular.
Manager Seneviratne said that if the team had more foreign exposure they would have fared even better. ``It's a pity that the Indian under 19 tour that was to take place in November last year before the World Cup did not materialise, it would have helped us to make a good assessment of the team and helped both teams to prepare for the contest. Most of the other participants had been playing against other countries in preparation of the championship,'' added Seneviratne.
Date-stamped : 08 Feb1998 - 18:46