Sangakkara offers solution to Sri Lanka’s chicken or the egg puzzle
View(s):There are some questions in this world which is best left to those with a philosophical bent to ponder, like is there life after death? Or which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I’m no Aristotle or Plato and as such will leave others to contemplate these profound queries. But on matters more mundane, I’m an instant expert and ready to offer my two-bit advice freely.
One such issue of much-concern these days is what comes first in cricket – a player who is weaned on a diet of test cricket or those who graduate the other way, from Twenty20 and One-Day version.
Given the excess of the limited version of the game our cricketers have been playing these days, you could be forgiven if you thought that the latter was what is important to Sri Lanka Cricket.
Sanga is confident the Fab-four will come good provided every assistance and trust be given and placed on them.
Not so, according to Kumar Sangakkara, who in a wide-ranging interview carried in this newspaper last Sunday, stressed that the longer form of the game was what mattered most. It was in this format that a player’s skill was forged.
“I think Test cricket is why I am at this stage and where I am now in terms of being a batsmen,” Sangakkara told the Sports Editor of this paper in a fascinating interview which gave great insight into the mind of one of the greatest players to come from these shores.
We have picked on this little gem to illustrate the bankrupt and moribund ideas of Sri Lanka Cricket which believes all that matters is filling its coffers with lucre.
Our test cupboard is bare. Thank heavens for a last-minute arrangement with Pakistan which will give us three tests in the United Arab Emirates in early January, but other than that next year will be a continuation of the past 12 months with our schedule resembling Old Mother Hubbard’s empty closet.
We all know how planned series against the West Indies and South Africa were changed into limited over hit-outs with little meaning other than to make money for the governing body.
Who suffers? Well if you are to read between the lines of what Sangakkara said, it is Sri Lanka cricket who will reap the ills of the seeds sown now.
“The things you learn in Test cricket and the way it tests you out when you play on a flat wicket or on a challenging turning and seaming wicket – you learn so much,” says Sanga.
Sadly this opportunity is few and far between for our emerging crop of players who are force fed an incessant diet of limited overs cricket. So how can the likes of Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Lahiru Thirimanne and Dimuth Karunaratne transform themselves into the next Sangakkaras and Jayawardenes?
These four players were identified by Sanga as the nucleus who will take over the mantle of responsibility when he and other seniors retire. That day is not far off. Sanga turns 36 in October. Mahela Jayawardene and Tillekeratne Dilshan are also in this same bracket.
The 2015 World Cup (50 overs) in Australia and New Zealand in 18 months is more than likely to be the swansong for our seniors. It is perhaps no coincidence then that Sanga said that the anointed four must be given this space of time to grow in confidence.
“I am sure these batsmen will graduate. Give them a little more time…. I think you must give them another six months to one year and you will see a huge difference,” Sanga pointed out.
Mathews and company have done little in recent months to inspire such confidence. Their struggles with the bat have been well documented but there is no doubt that they all have an innate ability and skill to come through.
The only way Sri Lanka Cricket can help them is to schedule more games, those that matter – Test cricket – as stated by Sanga. If the expert himself believes this is the way forward, why fight it?
But our high officials are more incensed that the ICC has not given Sri Lanka hosting rights of any major international tournaments over the next 10 years than fighting for more Test cricket.
It is all about money. Hosting tournaments pays huge dividends. It will also help make use of our manifold facilities, having five international grounds capable of holding big events.
Sri Lanka Cricket has been blindsided and mugged by the ICC. The fact that we didn’t know that there were preliminary plans to award the 2023 World Cup solely to India speaks volumes for the awareness of our officials who were caught flatfooted at a recent meeting.
They have made their objections known. Let’s hope that they will also press for more Test matches. With the inaugural World Test Championship due to be played in 2017 – the top four ranked Test teams by the end of 2016 will qualify – the onus is on more Test cricket.
It is no surprise that Sri Lanka is ranked a lowly seventh, just above New Zealand and Bangladesh, in the ICC Test rankings. We were once in the top four. How the mighty have fallen.
But rankings matter little. What counts is having a platform where our future generation can be fostered and nourished. As any parent knows a young child must be given a healthy diet – not milk from New Zealand these days – if he or she is to grown into a strong and mature adult.
The diet which Mathews, Chandimal, Thirimanne and Karunaratne must be fed on is Test cricket.
Sanga is confident the Fab-four will come good provided every assistance and trust be given and placed on them. The help has to come from Sri Lanka Cricket, for only they can shape and guide the fortunes of the next generation.
As for trust, that must come from all of us. Sanga has placed his trust in them and believes that technically and mentally they will grow into better players.
So what came first, the chicken or the egg? To ancient philosophers this question evoked the mysteries of how life and the universe began. In my case, I will take a leap of faith and believe it all began from a supreme power.
I only wish I could follow suit with a similar leap of faith in our cricket administrators.
comments powered by Disqus