On Tuesday evening the incumbent national cricket captain, Mahela Jayawardena, was in no mood go for the Sri Lanka-India T20 encounter. As the selectorial hierarchy had prescribed he wanted a break. The result was he drove up to his parents’ house and decided to watch the match there.

While the match was on, he discussed with his parents and family his future plans with Sri Lanka cricket. Then when the very inexperienced Lankan team managed to end up on the losing side narrowly, he texted captain Dilshan congratulating him for the fight-back. He then telephoned the selectors requesting for a meeting at 11 a.m.

Skipper Mahela Jayawardena tactfully encountering an awkward question thrown at him by the media on Thursday. (Pic Ranjith Perera).

Thereafter Mahela’s phone went dead and some selectors who tried to phone him back to get some clarification about the meeting were only pressing on to dead numbers that were detailed in his name.

On Saturday February 7, when the ‘Musings’ first heard about these rumblings, it had a very friendly chat with a selection committee member who said there was nothing brewing within the committee of that nature.

On Wednesday, when Mahela met the selection committee and handed over his letter of resignation, the committee members were rather taken aback. Then they had an animated discussion about the happenings around Sri Lanka cricket. They requested Mahela to go on regardless of the letter and told him about the compromise split captaincy.

Then Mahela gave his views about his thoughts about split captaincy and told the selectors that his wish was that his successor should have it all in one basket and it should not be given in bits and pieces. He said split captaincy would be counterproductive as the team would be under two captains within the same series. However he told the selectors that he had made up his mind on the issue and that was final and the selectors accepted it. Thereafter Mahela made a request to SLC saying that he would like to meet the media to explain his side of the story.

As for the Musings who looks at the broader picture, Mahela’s resignation hit had a bad timing -- perhaps worse than the timing he had with his bat on the ball while at the crease at recent times.As every one knows Sri Lanka cricket and its administration have been going through turmoil for the past thirteen months, with persons who have been fishing in troubled waters having a field day. I will go back to that later on.

As soon as the news broke out about Mahela’s abdication, there came another rumour that former Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya had made a request to the minister that he should be made captain of the national ODI team till the 2011 World Cup.

Meanwhile at the news conference on Thursday, a story was floating that the just ousted SLC chairman Arjuna Ranatunga’s camp was trying to promote senior player Thilan Samaraweera’s name as the Test captain. So much so a scribe went to the extent of asking Mahela if he wouldn’t mind playing cricket under a relatively junior cricketer, to which Mahela did not have any qualms about.

However to get the air clear about the issue, we spoke to the Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge and asked him if former captain Jayasuriya was about to be appointed as captain of the national ODI squad till the 2011 World Cup. The Minister’s prompt answer was: “In my capacity as the Minister of Sports I keep a close watch on all sports and its activities at all times, but I will never prevail upon a selection panel as to what they should do or who should they appoint as captain. If such a request is made by an individual, I will always direct it to the relevant selection committee. But the final decision is theirs and I must add that up to now I have not received any such request from Sanath Jayasuriya.”

Then when asked the man himself – Sanath Jayasuriya, said: “I want to be very clear on this matter. Once the SLC hierarchy met the team seniors and discussed as to what should be done to resuscitate the flagging national team, we as a group aired our views. That was the only instance, we discussed this matter. However I clearly state that I am not contesting to lead the Sri Lanka team now or ever in the future.”

At present Kumar Sangakkara is the vice captain designate in the Sri Lanka National cricket team in all forms of the game and it is very clear he is the heir apparent. Then what is this baloney that is bartered around? Well you know the answer by now.

However to be doubly sure we asked another well-respected cricket authority, Sidath Wettimuny, who even critics like Arjuna Ranatunga hails as a selector who spoke sense.

Wettimuny fittingly answered, “I think there is no other guy in the seeing distance than Kumar Sangakkara to take over as captain. I do not much agree with the timing of Mahela’s resignation, but now that it has happened, anyone who has an iota of a cricketing brain would appoint Sangakkara as the next captain of the Lankan national team in all forms of the game. And if not we are making a huge mistake by our cricket”.

Thirteen months prior to this saga, Sri Lanka cricket was being navigated through very calm sea without any undue turbulence. Then with the appointment of Arjuna Ranatunga, suddenly the two bowling coaches decided to look for greener pastures for very apparent reasons and the result of that is very evident when one looks into the Lankan bowling attack at present. The best example that you could pose is the case of Ishara Amerasinghe and Dilhara Fernando. According to a very knowledgeable cricketing insider, Amerasinghe who is one of the bowlers who could deliver at 140+ had a problem with his delivery footing while playing in Australia, but at that end no remedy was seen and he was sidelined. Then upon Amerasinghe’s return to the island that fault was put right in less than one hour. Now that Champaka Ramanayake is gone, Amerasinghe is also in the peripheries.

Dilhara Fernando with all his faults has been playing for the past few seasons and came up with a few revealing performances. The England and South African batsmen will vouch for that. But, since the departure of Ramanayake, Dilhara cuts a very sorry figure on field.

These were some of the direct challenges that Mahela had to face as captain. When the scaffoldings are taken off the men at the top find it difficult to carry on with their operations. The same could be said with the role that Ruwan Kalpage played with regard to the Lankan fielding.

These are the factors that SLC officials must look into and bring forth urgent solutions. At present in Sri Lanka everything that is within the cricketing machine looks incomplete and ruffled. First it was only on the outside, but now the cancer has run deep into the side itself.

First there was no ruling body – elected or interim. Now there is no heir apparent. Please any one who has the power do anything do it pretty soon and save the game we love.