The mental aspects of Lankan cricket

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For a short while I did pursue another vocation. Fortunately this occupation of mine also involved me a lot in the game of cricket. So much so when the then Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka decided to open its doors to international expertise and flew in Sri Lanka’s first foreign cricket coach Davnell Whatmore, I was a part of the reception committee that made that trip to Katunayake to welcome this person.

At that point I was with another person who is now a household name in cricket – Asoka de Silva who became Sri Lanka’s first Test player to be included in the ICC elite umpires list not once but twice.
Being complete cricket fanatics, we cornered Whatmore once the dust had settled in and began to grill him just for our information. Out of that conversation I still remember our first question and the answer that we got very vividly. We asked him what’s up with Sri Lanka cricket. Davnell quivered his thick mustache a bit and settled in and began. This was early 1995. He said “I have been watching these guys playing in Australia the other day and I firmly believe that there is very little that I could teach them about technique or how to play the game, but, the area that I will have to work would be their approach to the game and other allied mental aspects that go along with it”.

Thilina Kandamby ,m has shown a lot of character in his recent ODI knocks. (AFP)

At that time I could not fully comprehend what he really meant, but a year later in early 1996 I was fully aware of its significance and learned how contributory it could be to cricket. By then the Lankan team had turned into a unit of awesome cricketing warriors transforming from an amateurish bunch of international cricketers who knew how to play cricket, but did not know how to win and sustain a mental toughness for a given period of time.

Since of late I have begun to see that hesitancy in the Lankan cricketers’ eyes once again. Now it looks as if they have lost the fire in their bellies.

Right at this moment former Isipatana, NCC and Sri Lanka leg spinner Asoka de Silva is back in the island after standing at the historic Test series that was played between South Africa and Australia where the latter lost a series at home after sixteen years. Then to get his impressions on the situation I approached Asoka in his capacity as an umpire. I asked him the same question that the two of us posed to Davnell Whatmore nearly one and a half decades ago. “What’s up with Sri Lanka cricket?”

He paused for a fleeting moment and then answered “Yes, I see a loss of fire in the Lankan cricketers’ belly at present. It can come through various reasons but, what we urgently need are solutions to those problems. Now I see the Lankan cricketers taking the field and going through the motions. What I see there is that they are playing a cricket match for the sake of playing without any professional commitment. What I vividly noticed in Zimbabwe and Bangladesh is that the Lankans without learning the ground situation and adjusting their game plan accordingly, went down to their level and began to compete at that level. That is where I see the fault is. Definitely Sri Lanka is a more experienced side than both those sides and do possess the ability to adjust their game accordingly and they have done that before. But, this time we lacked that mental approach which we really need to compete at the prevailing level. As a result we struggled right through the two series.

Asoka de Silva continued “A classic example of loss of confidence or describing it more appropriately -- ‘a mental block’ is the present plight of Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardena. Maybe there were many background reasons for it to spark off, but as every one of us know Mahela is one of the best batsmen that Sri Lanka has ever produced. But, just look at the way he has been batting in recent times. More or less in his last few innings he has been getting out in the same manner – ‘fishing outside the off stump with his feet glued to the crease. I surely know that Mahela knows where his off stump is but, with the loss of confidence this has become a problem to him.”

At this point de Silva who is just about to leave for the Caribbean to officiate in the England vs. West Indies two tests from 4-17 February took another attitude. He said “As I think, the man of the match for me in the second Pakistan match was Thilina Kandamby. This young lad who was asked to bat in Mahela’s usual position did a tremendous job. When he walked in Sri Lanka had already lost the wickets of Jayasuriya and Sangakkara without very many runs on the board. With out-of-form Jayawardena to follow if he got out cheaply Sri Lanka would have been in deep trouble. But young Kandamby tackled the situation like a true professional and came out with a lot of mental toughness and carried the bat on to post a 99-run stand with Dilshan and to stage the running point of the game. This is why I say 80% of cricket is played in the head and 20% at the crease and thanks to our tour selectors they made the correct move”.

In conclusion de Silva said “May be Vaas and Malinga would have made a difference in our bowling line-up, but, I definitely do not see any huge dips in the Lankan bowling arsenal. So for what has gone wrong is that the batsmen have not backed the bowlers 100% and the moment that was done, you saw the result on Wednesday”.

PS: Notwithstanding the result of yesterday’s match, Lankans did prove that what they lack is not a shortage of class, but a little bit of dip in their confidence – or as Asoka calls it – “a slight mental block”.

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