Sri Lankans have a good work out ahead of Second Test

Elmo Rodrigopulle from New Zealand

CRICKET: The Sri Lankan cricketers were greeted with warm sunshine when they arrived in Wellington to begin preparations to front up to the New Zealanders in the second National Bank Test at the Basin Reserve beginning on Friday.

With the First controversial Test in Christchurch ending with more than two days to spare, the Lankans made use of the extra days to get back to the nets and put right the wrongs they did in the Test which they conceded to the Kiwis by five wickets.

Immediately on arriving at their hotel and settling down, captain Mahela Jayawardena got the team to the nets and in nice warm weather saw that his mates had a good workout. The unsporting and controversial run out Muttiah Muralitheran by wicket keeper Brendon McCallum is still a raging topic here with the newspapers continuing to say good and bad things about the incident that has strained the relations between the two teams and the Test is going to have a lot of needle in the middle.

Speaking to a newspaper, Kumar Sangakkara did not criticse McCallum for what he did, because the ball was still in play and that Muralitheran was out according to the rules.

"Looking at it if you interpret the rule directly the run out was out. But in the larger picture of things, the way cricket is going these days,it"s become very commercial", said Sangakkara.

He went on to say that there is a lot said of match referees and umpires being guardians of the game, but the players have a lot of responsibility for being frontline guardians of the game as well.

Sangakkara also recalled the incident in the ICC Champions Trophy where he had the opportunity of running out New Zealander Nathan Astle in similar fashion, but felt that it was absurd to break the stumps.

However Nathan Astle said he had no recollection of the incident In an opinion poll readers remain divided with 32.8% condemning McCallums"s run out of Muralitheran while 67.8% said the wicket keeper is not to blame.

Wellington, Tuesday