Sri Lanka has reached the final of Cricket World Cup 2011 with a five-wicket win against New Zealand at the R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo on 29 March 2011.

New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat but could not handle the spin of Muttiah Muralitharan (2 for 42) and Ajantha Mendis (3 for 35) who were well supported by Lasith Malinga (3 for 55). The Kiwis set a modest 218 in 48.5 overs before Sri Lanka to win and the Lankans wobbled in the middle before reaching the target in 47.5 overs.

The Lankans, cruising along at 160 for one, lost four wickets for 25 runs to raise fears of an upset before Angelo Matthews and Thilan Samaraweera guided them home. Muttiah Muralitharan, the spin wizard, took his 534th wicket off his last ball on home soil while lending a good hand to bowl out New Zeland for a below-par score of 217.

Kumar Sangakkara, the captain of Sri Lanka cricket team, paid rich tributes to Murali. “It was the last game for Murali in Sri Lanka and we wanted to give him a good send-off,” he said. “Murali is the icon of Sri Lanka, on the field, off the field, a fantastic human being and a great team man.”

New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori remarked after the loss, “The top order really set it up but we missed out by not capitalising,” said Vettori. “I think that’s where we lost the game. We’ve been an outstanding fielding side all tournament, we fought hard but it wasn’t enough today.”

Sri Lanka will now face India on 2 April 2011 at Mumbai.

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Born as Pinnaduwage Aravinda de Silva on 17 October 1965 in Colombo, he is a former Sri Lankan cricketer, who is considered one of the finest batsmen produced by the country in world cricket.

De Silva made his debut in Test cricket in 1984 at Lord’s against England. In his early part of the career he was known as a dashing but inconsistent batsman, which earned him the nickname “Mad Max” for his tendency to get out to rash shots. But later he showed up matured and aggressive batting style. He also hold the history of having a successful season of first-class cricket for the English county Kent in 1995 marked a turning point in his

career. De Silva was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s triumph in the 1996 Cricket World Cup. He also has scored a century in each innings of a Test match on two separate occasions. Once of these doubles was 138 and 105, both undismissed, against Pakistan at Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club in April 1997. De Silva’s highest test score of 267 happened at Basin Reserve in 1991 against New Zealand. He retired from international cricket in 2003.

Aravinda De Silva joined the English county side Kent in April 1995 after Carl Hooper left Kent to join the West Indies team for the summer. He showed an elegant batting performance in the county cricket owning a couple of brilliant scores taking kent to wins in a row. He was the third most prolific batsman of the County Championship in 1995 after Mark Ramprakash and Nasser Hussain with 1661 runs at an average of 59.32 and six centuries including the highest score of the season, 255.

One of the best performances from him came in the 1996 World Cup Final against Australia, where he took 3 wickets for 42 runs, two catches and then followed that with 107 not out with the bat to secure Sri Lanka a convincing 7 wicket victory. He was also chosen for the Man of the Match award. De Silva was recognized by Wisden in 2002 as the eight most significant batting performance in ODI cricket while his bowling was ranked 82nd in Wisden top 100 bowling chart.

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