Not everything is gloomy in Sri Lankan cricket right now. Barring the 3-0 whitewash of Australia in the Test series at home last year, Sri Lanka have very little to show for their performance in the last two seasons.
2017 began with the 3-0 and 5-0 whitewashes in Tests and ODI, respectively in South Africa before the T20 series win against the Proteas and Australia gave little respite.
However, failure to win the series at home against Bangladesh and a group-stage exit from the Champions Trophy extended the poor run.
Then came the ODI series loss against Zimbabwe which led to Angelo Mathews’ resignation as the captain in all the formats. Their poor run has continued in the ongoing series against India too where they have already lost the opening two Tests to lose the three-match series.
And while the team’s form may force the fans to skip the games, it looks like the cricket officials in Sri Lanka cricket are trying their best to draw the crowd to the ground again. Perhaps that was the reason when an unusual sight was witnessed on Sri Lankan grounds when some women came out to serve drinks during the first two Tests against India.
Later, a Sri Lanka Cricket official revealed the reason behind the board’s decision.
“Ground must look beautiful,” the board officials were quoted as saying by the Daily Observer.
Bhairav Shanth, the Co-founder of the ITW – the event management company overseeing the match in this series, stated that they wanted to do ‘something new’.
“We wanted to do something new to the old tradition and this idea struck to us….”, Bhairav said. “The girls were serving drinks to the players in Galle Test also. They will be in action at the Kandy and all other Limited over games also.”
Well, this is not the first time that women have served drinks on the cricket field. Way back in 1938, some women had served tea to the players during a Test at Headingley between England and Australia.
Meanwhile, the third and final match of the series will be played at Pallekele from August 12 before the teams take on each other in the limited-overs series, starting August 20th.
Also Read: (India’s predicted XI for the third Test match)