Sri Lanka’s return to New Zealand to complete a limited-overs cricket series interupted by last year’s Asian tsunami will bring back painful memories, the touring players say.
The Sri Lankan team was engaged in the first of five limited-overs matches against New Zealand on December 26 2004, when earthquake-churned walls of water crashed into a dozen nations on the Indian Ocean rim, sweeping away hundreds of thousands of lives.
More than 31 000 people died in Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan squad returned to New Zealand on Wednesday to play the final four matches of that series.
”I think we left New Zealand the same day as the tsunami hit so we all remember what happened,” opening batsman Sanath Jayasuriya told the New Zealand Herald newspaper.
Jayasuriya’s elderly mother was seriously injured in the disaster.
”I think it keeps reminding us of the tragedy we had in Sri Lanka,” he said.
”The people will remember here when we last played in New Zealand, so we want to do well to remember the people who were affected.”
Jayasuriya recalled making frantic phone calls to Sri Lanka in the hours after the disaster, hoping for news of family and friends. He said relief efforts had greatly eased the plight of Sri Lankans affected by the disaster, but much remained to be done.
”People are still worried and they are just recovering and still they remember the day when they got hit,” he told The Herald.
Sri Lanka captain Marvan Atapattu said his team would be playing, in part, for tsunami victims when the postponed series resumed at Queenstown on Saturday.
”It is getting better [in Sri Lanka], getting better slowly though,” he said.
”It’s a lot different now with the help of so many countries and so many people. We are ever so grateful to them to get our country back in shape.
”We went through a bit of a hard time in December 2004. There’s lots to play for — for people who have lost their lives, their relatives and their loved ones.” – Sapa-AP