Taking cricket beyond 2011

Sports

Though cricket is an ever evolving game, there is a certain quarter who tend to think that Sri Lanka produced its best cricketers in the 40s 50s and the 60s of the last century.

Maybe the cricketers who were churned out from a limited number of schools at that time which counted for less than the fingers in one hand were good enough for the demands of a league that was not professional. But at the same time it certainly was not the best talent that the country could have produced or had in store to be in the ‘big league’ if the call of the day was that.

When Sri Lanka first stepped on to the same stage as England, Australia, West Indies, New Zealand, India and Pakistan as a non full voting member in 1979, the shackles were just being broken and the stage was getting bigger.

Today the scenario is quite different, the then tiny islanders have been with the big boys for the past thirty years and is one of the biggest stake holders in the world cricket arena.

Now to stay afloat catering to the demands of World Cricket where there are three major leagues that has different strong points in each category is a real clarion call. The demands Test cricket is different to that of Limited overs cricket and the demands of T20 is different to that of Tests and Limited overs cricket.

Nishantha Ranatunga expressing his views

In short Sri Lanka though being the fourth in the Test playing category of World rankings, keeps sinking in the limited overs sector unable to cope with its demands while they are just cutting their teeth in the T20 category and is still putting all their monies in the time tested combination of players who have done extremely well in category one and failed in category two.

Though Sri Lanka just plunged into the T20 World Cup in England, its real focus is on the 2011 World Cup which will be played in the Indian sub-continent. At the same time one could see that the jig-saw puzzle in the World Cup wrangle is just falling to its place, one wonders how they are planning the Lankan journey from today to 2011 and then 2011 onwards.

To get a better understanding of what is in store for Sri Lanka cricket and how the local administration is hoping to drive the cricket band wagon beyond the next World Cup the Sunday Musings spoke to SLC’s secretary Nishantha Ranatunga. The former SSC allrounder was confronted with the question of how they were looking at the given scenario in the short term factor and the long term factor and the most effective way of putting them into action. He said that when they took over the reins of administration of cricket they had identified two main areas that they were going to put their scrutiny upon.

He said “Firstly, everything depends upon the players. We are very confident that we have the correct ammunition to go for the 2011 World Cup within our first 20-30 players. However, to go beyond that we must have the broader spectrum that will cover the entire system. Here we must catch ‘em young. We must not let the young talent to go astray once they come to the stage of leaving school. We must pick them up at that point and take them along so that they will become the feeder point to the ever growing national grid.

Having that in mind we have increased the number of contracted players from 30 to 75. For instance we have an academy squad of fifty and their requirement would be to become full time players. They will also be backed up with a reasonable salary. At present the move is in progress and it is only a matter of signing the contracts and moving forwards.”

Ranatunga also explained that just signing on players to the top division is not sufficient. He pointed out that that move also should be powered with the necessary back-up staff. The SLC secretary explained “To make this move and to have the intended results it also must be backed with the proper coaching staff which in turn will be backed up with the necessary administrative staff. In short this squad will also have the same back-up facilities that the national squad will have. That will include a coach, a physio, a trainer and the fielding coach”.

The SLC Interim Committee secretary explained that this would be a good move to keep the good cricketers who leave school seeking greener pastures and at the same time getting the local back-up staff more involved in the game and added “The difference between the Lankan under nineteeners and the under nineteen players from other countries is that most of the players in those countries are already professionals by the time they reach the age of nineteen, while our players of the same age are still in school. However this category will be for players between nineteen and twenty-one. They will start the day with cricket training and then get on to other back up training like communication and IT training.”
When asked about in the past few seasons Sri Lanka academy and ‘A’ team have been engaged more with teams in the sub-continent Nishantha Ranatunga said “Recently when the SLC IC chairman and I visited Dubai when the ICC was meeting we made it an opportunity to talk to all full member states about junior tours. There we managed to get Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa to have reciprocal under 19 and Academy tours very two years while India, Pakistan, West Indies and Bangladesh promised to have at least one junior tour per year”.

Ranatunga also emphasized that at present 70 to 80 per cent of the cricketers come from the outstations and the accent should move to those places. He said now what is happening is that entire plethora of cricketers converging in Colombo. At the same time they billet themselves in chummaries and other cheap boarding houses. Now the SLC is looking to move the accent of cricket out of Colombo and decentralize it so that these young cricketers will be in their own environment. At the same time with the ending of the problems in the North and the East we have taken steps to take the game into those areas too. Already they have conducted workshops in the Jaffna peninsula and in Trincomalee. However it would take some time before the North and the East could produce cricketers who could pit themselves against cricketers from other provinces who have been in the game without a break.

Finally Ranatunga concluded by saying that his ultimate goal is to give more prominence to District Cricket and Provincial Cricket so that there would be a healthy competition played around the country with the participation of all top cricketers in the country.

E-mail

views[1]