You, me, and the rain

So, the CB series manages to schedule a match that works with my schedule, and my desperate need for sleep on week-days, and what do the bloody rain gods do? They decide to show up, and push the start back to 930 PM. Whatever. But I shouldn't have been too surprised. Because if there is one thing I associate with India-Sri Lanka cricket, it's rain. Lots of it. And apparently, it doesn't seem to matter where they play. At first, I thought this was some sort of impressionistic, flaky, cranky take on things. But an hour or so ago, as I checked out Cricinfo, I found this little nugget:

10.25am Rajesh, our very own statsguru, has something for us. "If this match is washed out, it'll be the 11th no-result in ODIs between Sri Lanka and India, which is a record for any two teams. The next best (worst?) is Australia v India. Sri Lanka would have been involved in 22 washouts (if today's goes that way), and half of them have been versus India."

Of course, my memories of washed-out games is, I suspect, based on too many days of test cricket washed out. And to extend the discussion a bit, it doesn't seem to me that India and Sri Lanka have played much memorable cricket in their encounters for a very long time. Think about it. When was the last time that an India-Sri Lanka encounter provided for a great match? (say, in the last 10-12 years). There might have been great performances here and there (and honestly, I'm struggling to remember too many other than Aravinda in the WC 96 semi-final, the Ganguly-Dravid detonation at Taunton in 1999, perhaps Ganguly's match-winning 90-odd at Kandy in 2001, or the Jaya triple ton in 2002). But no memorable encounters, really. And somehow, these two teams, both giants of sub-continental cricket, simply haven't managed to build up a real rivalry with an edge or a sparkle (while I do look forward to India-SL games just because SL has such wonderfully talented cricketers, the rivalry itself has no real frisson to it). Theres no substantial reason for it, or at least none that I can immediately figure out at the moment. Perhaps its the rain.