Sri Lanka in Champions Trophy

Sri Lanka in cricket Champions Trophy is a mixed bag. They performed very well in some outings while in some, they presented a flop show.

1998 - Bangladesh
The South Africans pushed Sri Lanka out of the cricket tournament in the semifinals. The Proteas earlier scored 240 runs in 39 overs and later kept the Sri Lankans down to 132 runs. Reduction of overs brought down the excitement in the game to a large extent. The Sri Lankan innings was limited to 34 overs with fielding restrictions for ten overs. Duckworth-Lewis method was followed and Sri Lanka had to make 224 runs. They could not. They had defeated New Zealand in the quarter-finals.

2000 - Kenya
Pakistan handed Sri Lanka a nine-wicket defeat in the quarter-finals. This was a surprising defeat, for they had easily beaten the West Indies in the pre-quarter-final. Avishka Gunawardene made 132 in 146 balls making fun West Indies bowling. Mahela Jayawardena supported him with his half-century. But Sri Lanka lost steam in the quarter-finals.

2002 - Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka was both lucky and unlucky in the 2002 Champions Trophy. They reached the finals of the tournament. But rain forced them to share the trophy with India. In the first day of rain-interrupted final, skipper Sanath Jayasuriya and wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara made half-centuries. Another day, the match was replayed Half centuries by Mahela Jayawardena and RP Arnold once again became useless when rain revisited.

2004 - England
Sri Lanka could not go beyond pool stages. The islanders won their pool game against Zimbabwe by four wickets after two three-wicket spells each by Farveez Maharoof and Nuwan Zoysa limited Zimbabwe to 191. However, in the match with England, luck was against them. Duckworth-Lewis method was put into place because of rain and England won by 49 runs. This ended the dream of Sri Lanka to win the trophy.

2006 - India
The team failed to cross group stage league matches. South Africa defeated them by 78 runs and Pakistan by four wickets. But they managed to get better of New Zealand who crashed to paltry 165. Credit went to Muttiah Muralitharan who claimed four wickets.