‘It’s a big deal’ – Mahela Jayawardena reacts to former Sri Lanka minister’s claims of 2011 World Cup being fixed

Over the last few days, there has been a lot of ruckus in the Sri Lanka cricket fraternity after their former sports minister, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, claimed that the 2011 World Cup final was fixed. India won the match at the Wankhede Stadium by six wickets after being set a target of 275. Mahela Jayawardena’s valiant century went in vain for the Islanders.

Aluthgamage claimed that he won’t be exposing the names of the ones, who were involved in match-fixing, keeping in mind the reputation of his country. Thereafter, Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara, the Lankan skipper in the iconic game, reacted on the matter.

Sangakkara even asked the minister to go to the International Cricket Council (ICC) with the evidences. The words didn’t go with Aluthgamage, who reckoned that Sangakkara and Jayawardena were blowing the issue out of proportion.

“I don’t understand why Sanga and Mahela are making a big deal about this. I am not referring to any of our players. Everyone is talking about just two minutes of a half an hour interview I gave to a TV channel. Even Arjuna Ranatunga has openly talked about match fixing issues earlier,” Aluthgamage was quoted as saying.

Mahela Jayawardena unhappy

Mahela again responded to the minister’s latest claims. The veteran said that the issue can’t be ignored since they were being accused off ‘selling the World Cup’ deliberately. Mahela clearly wasn’t a happy man after the revelations, initially made on May 18.

He took to Twitter and wrote, “When someone accuses that we sold the 2011 WC naturally it’s a big deal cus we don’t know how one could fix a match and not be part of the playing 11? Hopefully, we will get enlightened after 9 years…????”

Here is Jayawardena’s tweet

The 2011 World Cup became the first instance when a home team got to lift the trophy. MS Dhoni’s unbeaten 91 and Gautam Gambhir’s 97 took the Indian team over the finishing line. Lasith Malinga gave his team a couple of crucial breakthroughs, but Lanka couldn’t hold on to their dominance. It was also back-to-back defeats for Sri Lanka in the mega event after their defeat at the hands of Australia in 2007.