Dilshan buoyed by youngsters

Old Trafford, July 10 (bdnews24.com) ? This tour of England has been a case of so near yet so far for Sri Lanka. A Test series lost in one manic at session at Cardiff has been followed by a one-day series defeat after they had two chances to clinch the trophy.

Sri Lanka understood before arriving that it would be tough to compete in the Tests, but the limited-overs matches offered a serious chance of silverware as had been the case in 2006 when they won the one-day series 5-0, reports ESPNcricinfo.

It started promisingly with the Twenty20 victory and when they recorded back-to-back ODI victories at Headingley and Lord's the momentum was with them.

However, a juicy pitch and a crucial toss did for them at Trent Bridge and then they couldn't make the most of conditions that should have suited them at Old Trafford with a pitch that turned and lacked pace.

"In the last two months we've played some good cricket," Tillakaratne Dilshan said. "We lost the Test series in one hour and again in this one-day series we lost three matches in about the first six overs of our batting. I think we can be a much better side than that.

"I have no complaints but we played some good cricket. We started badly but we restricted them to 260 and we were in trouble again at 29 for 3 but we came back from it. [Dinesh] Chandimal batted very well to put pressure back on England, but sadly we came out as the losing side."

It has been the performances from the likes of Dinesh Chandimal, who followed his Lord's hundred with 54 at Old Trafford, Angelo Mathews who showcased his talent with 62 in the deciding match and Suraj Randiv's 5 for 42 which have given Dilshan cause of optimism.

"We had a big issue in the last three or four years with the middle order not doing well for Sri Lanka," he said. "The top order was always getting runs but now we have more confidence in the middle order and that is good for the future. We can look forward to the upcoming series [against Australia] with these youngsters."

While Mathews was at the crease Sri Lanka had every hope of dragging themselves over the line. His most famous innings was the unbeaten 77 against Australia, at Brisbane, which carried them to a one-wicket win after a chase of 240 had fallen to 107 for 8.

"He has shown in the past he can finish matches, like in Australia, and we had a belief they could finish the game," Dilshan said.

"When Jeevan [Mendis] was there were believed we had a chance and even at the end, too."

However, at the vital time the contributions of Mahela Jayawardene tailed off after his innings of 144 and 79 earlier in the series which, coupled with Dilshan's horrid trot where he made 17 runs in five innings, left a lot on the shoulders of Kumar Sangakkara.

Sri Lanka shuffled the batting order for the final match with Jayawardene moving back down to No. 4 to allow debutant Dimuth Karunaratne to open with Dilshan but the visitors were soon 12 for 2 when Karunaratne was caught at slip and Dilshan hooked to long leg.

"Dimuth is an opening batsman and we needed to give him a chance and he's scored a lot of runs in domestic cricket," Dilshan explained.

"Also we wanted the left-hand right-hand combination and if he'd got some runs today it might have been a different story in the series. As a captain I didn't get any runs and I'm really disappointed with that."

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Vit-A may help beat pancreatic cancer

Syed Nahas Pasha

London, July 11 (bdnews24.com) ? An international research team from Barts Cancer Institute (BCI) in City of London has found that Vitamin A could hold the key to beating pancreatic cancer.

It has some of the bleakest survival rate of all cancers.

Across the world 250,000 people die from pancreatic cancer every year including one of the disease's highest-profile victims, film star Patrick Swayze, The Dirty Dancing and Ghost star, who died in 2009.

The BCI research showed that by raising levels of Vitamin A in the non-cancerous cells surrounding the malignant ones, the cells' structure changed from facilitating to inhibiting cancer growth.

Dr Hemant Kocher, a consultant pancreatic and liver cancer surgeon at Barts and The London NHS Trust and researcher from BCI, led the team during a four years joint project with the University of Cambridge and the Hubrecht Institute in Holland.

Dr Kocher said: "The findings should lead to better survival rates and different treatment methods for pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest types of cancer that annually kills almost 7,500 patients in the UK."

Dr Kocher explained his team took a very different approach and thought outside the box to demonstrate a new way of tackling cancer.

Their research based on the seed and soil theory for targeting cancer and found that paying attention to the non-cancerous tissue surrounding the seed of the cancer is as important as focusing on the cancer itself.

Researcher tested the effect of Vitamin A ? which influences the way cells behave ? in samples from pancreatic cancer patients.

People with pancreatic cancer are deficient in many vitamins as the secretion of digestive juices from their pancreas and liver into their bowel is blocked.

Patients are routinely very deficient in Vitamin A, a common vitamin found in a range of food sources such as carrots and broccoli.

Dr Kocher's team finds restoring normal amounts of Vitamin A in non-cancerous cells (the soil) surrounding the cancer seed changed the cells from facilitating to inhibiting cancer growth.

"Vitamin A is just one example of an agent that can be added to successfully alter the nature of the soil," Dr Kocher said.

He said "Other vitamins and medicines could further change the soil's structure so this is really opening up a whole new field of research and possibilities.

The finding also means it's likely that different drugs will be used to treat pancreatic cancer as current chemotherapy only targets the actual cancer cells."

It is rare that patients with pancreatic cancer survive more than five years. Once diagnosed, most do not survive more than a year. Less than 20 percent who have surgery and chemotherapy may survive more than two years.

Alex Ford, Chief Executive at Pancreatic Cancer UK, a charity, commented: "This research into the benefits of injecting Vitamin A into the healthy cells surrounding malignant ones is interesting. Treatment options for pancreatic cancer patients are limited.

"Greater focus on the causes and most effective ways of diagnosing and treating pancreatic cancer is critical if we are going to improve poor survival rates for the disease, which have hardly improved over the past 40 years."

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