President's phone call on T20 World Cup Final

 


Sir didn't come for the Finals .... but he called me
He wished me 'Game kolla'
                                 -- Lasith Malinga
Conversations taking place here and there about the victor of the Sri Lanka team at the T20 World Cup recently has still not faded away.

While various humorous dialogues are circulating across the facebook about the absence of the President to watch the Finals, Lasith Malinga, captain of the victorious T20 team who expressed his ideas to a weekend newspaper recently described about the President's phone call given on the day of the Finals. This is how he spoke about it to the Silumina newspaper:

"That day when we won .... the President had watched the match. At that very moment he had spoken to Sanath aiyya who was on the grounds. When Sanath aiyya gave the phone to me,he wished me. He said he


was very happy. He couldn't even talk properly because of the joy. Later Sanath aiyya told me that the President had said that 'village boys are great'. Truly, sir would have seen my capabilities as a captain that day. I am really happy about it. Sir had seen me playing during the time I came into cricket. He had said that he was very happy about the way I play. When I was suffering from a leg problem in 2008, I lost the opportunity to play cricket. I was unable to play cricket forever. At that time nobody took notice of me. Nobody even cared to see about me. It was then that I realised how much he loved village-folk and the game of cricket.

He spoke tome and introduced me to his private physician Eliyantha White. I was able to come back into cricket because I got my leg back into shape .... come back into the team and started playing .... still. So he may have felt a joy more than I .... thinking that I am in the national team like this because of what he did for me.