A shirtless Kusal Perera during a training session. Photo Cricinfo[/caption]
What we are experiencing at the moment are the disastrous outcomes of all the mismanaged socio-economic developments post 1996?
By Revatha S. Silva
The utter lie the fans are now sick of hearing
“Just not enough runs again. We’re coming up against a really good bowling attack. They’re (England) ranked No. 1 in the world, we’re ranked No. 9, and you can see the difference. We’ve started a journey with a young team and for us it’s about getting better, competing, learning from every game and every experience and getting better and better as we go along.”
- SL Head Coach Mickey Arthur to BBC after his team's loss in the second T20I on Thursday (24)
There has never been a time when the Sri Lanka national cricket team had failed so miserably like they have now. There were times when the Sri Lanka team used to struggle continuously for a long period of time, mainly away from home. Yet they had always been on a journey where they progressed gradually.
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After Saturday's (26) batting display by Sri Lanka, this photo does not require any caption[/caption]
Since late 1800s to 1930s or so, the British colonial masters who ruled Ceylon played the game. Then the locals started to take over. The native Ceylonese raised their standards by involving in unofficial matches against England and Australia who stopped over in Colombo to refuel their ships en route to their destination for the Ashes cricket series etc.
Ceylon became an International Cricket Council Associate Member in 1965, a Test nation in 1981, a reasonable force in world cricket both home and away since the early 1990s, and one of the best cricketing nations on all conceivable counts by the dawn of the 21st Century. They maintained that status for the first 15 years of the new millennium.
We are not talking about the 96 team under Arjuna Ranatunga. This essentially Sri Lankan brand had been the same since very early days, perhaps since the day the natives took over the game entirely from the Britishers who introduced it in the island.
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Mahadevan Sathasivam (on right) with Gary Sobers[/caption]
From F.C. de Saram, Mahadevan Sathasivam, C.I. Gunasekera, Stanley Jayasinghe, Michael Tissera, Anura Tennekoon to Bandula Warnapura, Duleep Mendis, Roy Dias to Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva -- they were uniquely Sri Lankan cricketers who displayed a style identical to Sri Lanka.
It was the time when England’s popularity of cricket started withering too. The administrative and economic epicentre of the game had shifted from the United Kingdom to the Indian Subcontinent. Bangladesh too had entered the fray only to strengthen Asia’s might by the year 2000.
It was a decade when the game needed a new leader other than England and Australia, in the playing field, governance, and economy. And, the game needed a new style to suit the emerging realities of a new digital world - the new world of the computer, mobile phone, and the satellite television.
This new era, with the advent of the above three, required a revival of cricket, which was the main sport and the main source of entertainment and individual national identities in the Subcontinent. It was by far the main vehicle for global commercial giants to reach the highly anticipating India market.
Duleep Mendis, along with Ranatunga and Dav Whatmore, first employed the Sanath-Kalu explosive opening-batting ploy in 1995 in Australia[/caption]
The Arjuna-Mendis-Whatmore think-tank then rightly understood it was time that they can fight against the Aussies both on-and-off the field and come up trumps. They knew they had the firepower to do so like never before, having in their ranks ones such as Aravinda, Jayasuriya, Vaas, and Muralitharan.
(i) India entering into open economy under Narasimha Rao in 1991, (ii) Mendis asking Sanath and Kalu to go and whack the Aussies over the infield in 1995, and (iii) the Wills World Cup coming to be staged in Asia in 1996... they were three isolate incidents, three phenomena which were not interrelated. Yet the three roads met up in Lahore on one fine night when Sri Lanka won the World Cup, beating the Aussies in the final.
On the other hand, it brought about, in a broader sense, two parallel developments in the sport: It brought about the transformation the game had wanted to have, to suite the new realities of the digital market forces as well as the shifting of the game’s economic epicentre from England to India.
The next crop of players including Sangakkara, Mahela, Dilshan, Malinga, Kulasekara et al should be considered really fortunate ones to have been able to reap the harvest of such a long and arduous journey that had lasted perhaps over a century.
Sangakkara explains the world the possible solutions to our cricket woes. Can't he implement those solutions practically here, as a member of the present National Sports Council along with its Head Mahela Jayawardene? Ironical[/caption]
Since 2000s, what we saw was Sri Lanka cricket reaching a totally professional structure where cricketers were to be paid like the way the professional players of other countries were paid. Cricket became, in the last two decades, a profession which is more lucrative and appealing than any other. Even a doctor, engineer, lawyer or a typical politician couldn’t have earned even the half of what a national cricketer could earn per a month.
In addition, they were treated as heroes even when they were not. They were treated as role-models even when they were really not. Sangakkara is a role-model for his sheer sporting achievements and his versatile character. But his influence spilled over to areas like education to good governance where he cannot be counted as an exemplary figure or a role-model. The society was fooled, mainly by the commercial world by projecting Sanga, Mahela et al as those who can preach us on any subject. Their private-life practice never reflected what they actually preached.
Sri Lanka's World Cup triumph had its positive results on the field for almost two decades since 1996[/caption]
This new intake who were graduated into national ranks needed to be monitored, supervised, disciplinised, and thoroughly nurtured in the right path if Sri Lanka were to continue with the same success rate. Such a thing never happened unfortunately.
It is like a farmer’s son today goes on to earn 15 lakhs a month tomorrow, after receiving his national cricket contract. Doesn’t such a quick transformation beget indiscipline, poor commitment, complacency, undue haughtiness? Then emerged the Gunthilakas and Mendises et al followed by cocaine, night clubs, hit-and-run accidents, rape … (you name it, they have it).
And this is not a young team either. In the last match on Thursday (24), the two youngest players (Avishka Fernando and Wanindu Hasaranga) were 23 and Binura Fernando 25. The whole rest is over 26 and three of them are in fact 30 plus - and you still call it a young side begs sincere clarification!
This is not a START of a journey either, as Arthur has put it. This is theoretically the beginning of the END of a journey, a great, great journey. Sadly, this is not a transition too, as many, including Sangakkara, were tend to assume. This deterioration had been quite nakedly evident for nearly six years now. Mind you! Can a transition in cricket last that long?
Did that really happen? Jayasuriya demolishing England bowling in 1996 World Cup quarter-finals[/caption]
By looking at the broader picture, which we tried to brief you above, the solutions need to be all-encompassing. It involves on-field development but greatly the point is out of the playing field - with the social, psychological, and commercial spheres.
If an all-involving --past cricketers, politicians, the board, players, selectors, coaches, etc--, and really genuine effort is not going to be made soon, considering this as the LAST chance, Sri Lanka’s cricket will be left to be in ruins. Nobody will be able to revive it. That will be a great sin that all of us will be making, on the part of our future generations, in this magically cricketing nation.