Australia: cricket's hell for Sri Lanka

The Daily News said the calling of Sri Lanka's top spinner Muttiah Muralitharan by Australian umpire Ross Emerson was to ``demoralise and humiliate'' Ranatunga's team which beat Australia in the World Cup in 1996.

``The (current) tour of Australia for the ... one-day series has been one helluva nightmare for Sri Lanka's cricketers,'' said writer Elmo Rodrigopulle. ``On this tour the Lankans must be now experiencing what it is like to be in cricket's hell.''

Rodrigopulle who is in Adelaide covering the Sri Lankan tour said Ranatunga's team had been ``harassed, hounded and humiliated'' at every turn since they arrived in Australia.

The Sri Lankan captain Ranatunga has been called before an International Cricket Council (ICC) hearing after Saturday's controversial one-day match against England in which Sri Lankan bowler Muralitharan was no balled for throwing by umpire Emerson.

Following the call Ranatunga held a heated exchange with the umpire and halted play for 12 minutes while the South African match referee, Van der Merwe and Sri Lankan cricket officials were called to quell the situation.

Hearing against Ranatunga was originally scheduled for Tuesday but it was put off and Van der Merwe did not say when a fresh hearing into the Sri Lankan skipper's behaviour would be held.

Another Sri Lankan sports writer, Sa'adi Thawfeeq, said the harassment of the Sri Lankan team in Australia may actually drive them to perform better at the forthcoming World Cup series in England.

``It seems the Aussies will never learn,'' Thawfeeq wrote Tuesday. ``They needled the Sri Lankans so much on the 1995-96 tour that our boys got so fired up to transform themselves from being an ordinary bunch of cricketers to become the world champions of one-day cricket.''

The president of Sri Lanka's board of control for cricket, Thilanga Sumathipala left for Australia on Monday to defend his team before the ICC inquiry.