take those things away.Gomez rode for the last time in la

Reflecting on what had been a bleak year, Angelo Mathews thanked Sri Lankan fans for their support, following his teams first Test victory since October. The 106-run victory in Pallekele was just Sri Lankas second against Australia, but also Mathews first triumph over a Test-playing nation in 2016. Sri Lanka had beaten India in a T20 in Pune, but Mathews had been unavailable through injury during that series.After a rough, tough six to eight months, we needed that victory, Mathews said. In that time, there was a situation where fans were turning away from us. As cricketers we feel that, because when we play well everyone loves you. Even when you lose they may love you, but they are also disappointed. The best thing was to win this match for the fans. Its a great win for those who stayed with us, and we thank them because that support means a lot.In the past six months, we as a team got a lot of stick. But thats part and parcel of the game. When we do well we get praised. When we do badly we get a bit of stick. I think we as players need to understand that.Mathews was full of praise for Man of the Match Kusal Mendis, whose 176 had transformed the outlook of the match. Mathews said he had seen something special in Mendis as far back as December, when Sri Lanka toured New Zealand. Mendis had played only one first-class season at the time, without particularly stellar returns.The selectors said he was really good, but I hadnt seen him much to be honest, Mathews said. Once we went to NZ I thought Kusal was pretty special as well. The way he handled himself at the top of the order - it was a couple of tough tours for him as well in New Zealand and England, where it was seaming around. You dont always have to have a lot of experience. There can be exceptional players like him who can walk into the international scene and start performing.Mendis score was more than triple what any other batsman managed in the game, and had rescued Sri Lanka from a first-innings deficit of 86.Especially playing his first Test against Australia and their very good attack, Mendis showed a lot of class and a lot of temperament, Mathews said. It was not easy to bat on that wicket. It was turning rapidly and their bowlers were bowling well and fast as well. The way he played, he made it look so easy. Most of us were struggling to get runs. The way he batted, Im very excited for the future.Debutant left-arm wristspinner Lakshan Sandakan was also instrumental to the victory, taking seven wickets in the match. He was part of a three-man frontline spin attack, featuring Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera, but he turned the ball substantially more than either senior spinner.When Rangana is bowling, he is attacking but also he contains, Mathews said. We needed someone like Sandakan. Unfortunately, Dilruwan didnt bowl that well in the game, and Im sure hell come back strongly. But it was very pleasing to see Sandakan bowling his googlies, and also the batsmen were finding it very tough on this wicket. He will take the confidence of this performance forward.Mathews was quick to stress that plenty of work remained to be done in both the series, and with the team, but said the team environment had already benefited from the vibes resulting from a victory.The atmosphere in dressing room has changed a lot. Even though we lost in the recent past, weve not given up. We always had hopes. We always helped each other. Every team goes through this transition period, and once you click, you can go a long way. Thats what we believed. We kept helping the youngsters and even the youngsters threw in their ideas. It was a collective effort from the whole team.Dwyane Wade Jersey . -- The Bishops Gaiters are showing they belong among the countrys top varsity football teams. Derrick Jones Jersey . -- Whether Jeremy Hill deserves a prominent role in LSUs offence this early in the season is a matter for debate. https://www.heatlockerroom.com/Alonzo-Mourning-City-Edition-Jersey/ . U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield in Manhattan agreed that lawyers on both sides could make their formal requests by Nov. 8. A hearing is scheduled for a day earlier. Jordan Siev, a lawyer for Rodriguez, wrote in a joint letter to the judge from lawyers on both sides that MLB lawyers planned to ask that the lawsuit be dismissed. Tyler Herro Heat Jersey . Instead of dwelling on the negative, Oates focused on what was good about the clubs recent play. It worked. Derrick Jones Heat Jersey . Perhaps Carroll was so prepared for a break because he believes there is very little the Seattle Seahawks need heading into the off-season. "I dont see anything that we need to add. We just have to get better," Carroll said.If tragedies are meant to be clustered in threes, then Thoroughbred racing has paid its dues in full for the rest of 2016.In another life, Steve Sexton was a colleague at Daily Racing Form. His name on a teletyped message or an inter-office bundle meant you were getting the straight scoop, and that the job -- any job -- was getting done with a discipline of purpose and respect for the work that co-workers crave in a boss on the rise.Sexton was 57 when a virulent form of brain cancer took him from his friends and loving family at home in Texas last week.When I last spoke with Steve he had helped create the United States Grand Prix, at a spanking new mega-course in Austin, Texas. This, to a fellow traveler in the Formula 1 car racing world, is what God would have done on the seventh day if he hadnt taken a break. In between, Sexton lent his good nature and organizational skills to a number of Thoroughbred racetracks. Lucky them.Even as president of Churchill Downs Inc., Sexton was a classic behind-the-scenes guy, preferring to pass around the credit and the praise. Walter Swinburn never had that option. From his first swings in the saddle he was the Golden Child, the Choirboy, already mounted with such outsized talents as All Along and Shergar by the time he was 22.The fishbowl of Swinburns life often was polluted by injury, alcohol, and the ravages of weight control. And still he rode like a dream, until there was no more to give, and retired to life as a trainer.Swinburns death this week at 55 was mourned by his British racing family as the loss of a son in a battle he had been losing for years. To their credit, they honored him in life as well, but his passing opened floodgates of praise, like this from veteran journalist Chris McGrath in the Thoroughbred Daily News:However incongruous with his hidden torments, then, the seraphic exterior was perfectly consistent with vitals seated far deeper than his stomach or liver. There was a nearly ethereal continuum between the core of his being and that of the horse he governed so lightly.There was no hiding the torments that finally ended the life of Garrett Keith Gomez. He was a drug and alcohol addict, a poster boy for dependency and its evil cousin, self destruction.He was also an athlete of grace and style and competitive fury, talented beyond words, who emerged from the depths of his addictions to write a peerless chapter as a professional jockey.Gomez already was a known commodity as a riding star and cocaine connoisseur when he found rock botttom in 2003.dddddddddddd His career and marriage were in shambles. He spent most of the year either on the run, in jail, or in court-ordered drug rehabilitation. He needed to heal from the inside out, and he did, or at least well enough to resume his riding career in September of 2004.There ensued seven miracle years. Between 2005 and the end of 2011 the horses ridden by Gomez earned more than $138 million. He was national champion four times, Eclipse Award winner twice, and won an incredible 13 Breeders Cup events. He rode champions Rags to Riches, Lookin At Lucky, Beholder, Indian Blessing, Wait a While, and Blame.Two days before Gomez rode Blame to a narrow victory over Zenyatta in the 2010 Breeders Cup Classic, the jockey suffered a broken right arm and scapula in a fall on the Churchill Downs turf. He later wryly noted that it was a good thing he didnt need to switch the whip to get the job done, because he couldnt move his arm.At the beginning of 2012, Gomez fractured his heel in a freak fall on the way to the track at Santa Anita. He spent part of his physical rehabilitation collaborating on his biography with historian Rudy Alvarado. They called it The Garrett Gomez Story: a Jockeys Journey Through Addiction & Salvation.The book offered a frank telling of his addictions and their consequences, as well as the riders gratitude that there was still a sport and a family that would offer him another chance. The story also was fraught with warnings, none more dire than the one contained in the last line of the book:? but he was the only one that couldve ever given those things to himself -- and in the end, the only one that can take those things away.Gomez rode for the last time in late 2013. The news of his death at age 44, apparently from a drug overdose, was the first time he had made any kind of headlines since his name appeared on the 2016 Hall of Fame ballot along with fellow jockeys Ramon Dominguez, Victor Espinoza, and Craig Perret.This reporter has missed dealing with the public version of Garrett Gomez these past few years. He was funny, friendly, and articulate regarding his craft. and when he was at his healthiest, the public and the private man were pretty closely aligned. He would have preferred a life less complicated, Im sure. But at least he left an image of the athlete at full throttle, and a warning that glory is fleeting, and never the point. ' ' '