Without any doubt one could identify Sangakkara as the most mentally tough cricketer in Sri Lanka

While still in school playing cricket, Bandula Warnapura was a contemporary at my brother school Nalanda. By then we already had assumed that his walk into the national team was just a matter of time. Then one day one of my colleagues asked me if I had seen this young Nalandian by the name of Anura Ranasinghe performing. As we too were at the same compound practising, I just walked across the ground to see who this little lad was. This slightly built lad was there under a banyan tree giving catches to his team mates. Yet, by the next season he was already playing first Xl cricket for his alma mater.
While in school young Ranasinghe showed exceptional talent and like Warnapura, he too became another candidate for a national cap while still in school.

Living upto their early promise, both these Nalandians went on to don the national cap and lived on to become legends of Lankan cricket. That is why still people talk about these players. There is no doubt they did have the talent and exceptional ability.

Besides, cricketers of this nature have the inner drive to strive for excellence. They have the third eye that shows them the path — the path that makes the difference between the good and the best.

In more recent times, it was Royal’s Bhanuka Rajapaksa who showed that inner glow. While on the field with the Royal crest he stood out from the others and he too spelled out a message that he was going to be up there among the clouds before long.
His breaks to wear the bigger boots also followed. But, after some flashes he seems to have settled to be a periphery player who is yet to break the shackles and set himself free.

I asked a man that matters about the case at hand. He said Bhanuka Rajapaksa was still there within the range, but it was all up to the lad to live to his early potential and overcome that mental block.

I feel what makes the difference between Rajapaksa and cricketers like Warnapura and Ranasinghe is their mental toughness to adapt to certain situations.

However, I find that the Rajapaksa case is not an isolated incident or issue. It is a common phenomenon which warrants as a serious case study by our cricket authorities to bring about a solution as soon as possible.

Recently the Lankan chief selector Sanath Jayasuriya was speaking on this same issue. He explained that in a recent tournament a local side full of young hopefuls who were knocking at the door were all out for a meagre total. He said that clearly he was annoyed with the way they played and their attitude and he had a stern chat with the lads and warned he was not buying that performance, especially if they were eyeing better slots. His advice worked. The same lads had come up with a much better performance with bat in the second innings.

The Lankan chief selector’s contention was that the urge should not have come through him. The lads should have been motivated themselves. They should be there at the crease challenging the status quo; they should be breathing down the necks of the aging seniors, when that happens automatically the quality of the local game improves. Then when the game moves to the international arena the younger brood is there ready to walk that extra mile.

The best case study in this situation is Kumar Sangakkara. Recently, he told a forum that he was not a born cricketer. While in school he was as good as the next man in and that was it. However it was after he left school and was playing club cricket that he knew that he was ready to take the next step in cricket.

From the moment he felt the urge in his inner self, he began to work and up to now he has not stopped the exercise. Sangakkara spoke of another salient point. He was stressing about the fact that one should have his own identity. In cricket or any other chore that you engage yourself in, you should try to have your own identity embedded in the product and must always remember you must not try to do something the way someone else has accomplished it.

Without any doubt one could identify Sangakkara as the most mentally tough cricketer in Sri Lanka. That is the very fact he is known as the best Lankan exponent to bat on wickets like the Australian and South African where the fast bowlers call the tune. For a cricketer who counts himself as to be a person who took up to serious cricket only after he was playing club cricket, it is a great achievement. He was not afraid to peep into his inner self and find out where his strengths and weaknesses were. Sangakkara was keen enough to work on them and perfect that art as much as he could.

In recent interviews both Sanath Jayasuriya and the Lankan ‘A’ team coach Romesh Kaluwitharana impressed upon the notion that Lankan larder is full of talent. Good. They say that they have the replacements from any slot from 1-11. But at the same time they also say right now there are no young players who could fit into the boots of T.M. Dilshan, Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara.

This should be the point of subject at the inner halls of the cricket headquarters at Maitland Place.

For instance, Kusal Janith Perera shows the flare and talent what it takes to be at the top of the big league, but, at the same time he lacks the application and the inner strength that his seniors had at the same age.

A senior cricketer who is very close to the younger cricketers says that the young guns do have it in them, but for some inexplicable reason there is an across-the-board mental flaw – a factor that the present seniors did not encounter as youngsters. He insists that all what is needed is a slight adjustment, but how could they find solutions to a common flaw? The difference finally would be etched in our international cricket ratings in the not very far off future.

Talent and being mentally prepared are similar to a spicy meal with salt and a meal prepared without the right balance of salt.
The Warnapuras, Ranasinghes, Ranatungas, de Silvas, Sangakkaras and Jayawardenas knew that they belonged to the crease at the middle. Are the next-in-line ready for that?