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I don’t always argue, but when I do we win. Meme via syco.me

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If Sri Lanka wins a cricket match you can potentially have a happy conversation with anybody on the island. Mix that with the Internet and you get an explosion of Facebook memes. Here’s a few.

Above, let’s start above. Mahela argued with an umpire over a no-ball call, I think cause the umpire called a 6, and then later called it a no-ball too (which is unusual). He was fined 10% of his match fee. I heard that he said he’d pay when the Sri Lanka Cricket Board paid salaries (they suck), but I couldn’t find that in the press conference video.

via Gayathri Hemachandra

Anyways, arguing with umpires has great cachet with Sri Lankans. In the meme directly above, they’re comparing this to Captain Arjuna Ranatunga defending Murali against calls of chucking. That to many Sri Lankans was a heroic moment (because I think it was) and in this context captains can do no wrong. It’s still quite surprising seeing it coming from the usually mild mannered Mahela.

via Sri Lanka Memes

This is basically just a funny photo and sign. Win or lose, we booze. Yeah, true I suppose, though tomorrow is poya.

As passionate as Sri Lankans are about cricket, they will basically never get angry at their own cricketers. Compare this to India, where after getting out of a tournament, players had their houses burnt. When you get more people I guess you get more crazies. As far as I could tell, Sri Lanka (the politicians and board I think) basically threw the last World Cup, but there were no repercussions. Sri Lankans getting mad at our cricketers would be like a Sri Lankan mother* actually getting mad at their son. It just doesn’t happen.

Honestly, as long as the team plays well, people will be happy. Even if the lions play badly, there’s always Lion beer.

via Navam Hapangama

Finally, there is this self-referential meme, telling us to brace ourselves for patriotic status updates. I honestly didn’t see much like that, though. Most of the memes were pretty funny.

* note that any generic references to Sri Lankan mothers do not, of course, apply to my mother.