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In a country where people seldom challenge the political leadership of the day preferring instead to pay homage to blatant sycophancy, a refreshing contrast emerges from the ‘boy from Rathgama’ (as he identifies himself), one of Sri Lanka’s leading cricketers, Lasith Malinga.

Monkeys and Parrots
As someone entirely and quite unashamedly ignorant about the intricacies of the game per se, what gripped my attention was the manner in which Lasith Malinga took on Sri Lanka’s Minister of Sports, Dayasiri Jayasekera. Though the Minister himself seems not to have distinguished himself in a sporting career as such, he is of course, a favourite player of the game, ‘jump from one party to the next.

Malinga was responding to the Minister’s criticism that the country’s cricketers were too fat after Sri Lanka failed to reach the Champions Trophy semi-finals. In pithy and laughter-inducing Sinhalese, his exact response was “I don’t care about criticism from those who are simply warming chairs…what does a monkey know about a parrot’s nesting hollow? This is like a monkey getting into a parrot’s nest and talking about it.”

The comparisons bring to mind, some equally laughter-inducing reflections. Taken by itself, there is nothing intrinsically wrong in the monkey. Certainly, as some would argue, a monkey has a far better brain than a mindless parrot. And if one takes the theory of evolution at its most simplistic, human beings are supposed to be descended from monkeys/apes. So in fact, one could possibly hypothesize that Malinga was paying a compliment to a politician when he compared him to a monkey. And there are many Sri Lankans who would say that the compliment was less than richly deserved.

The culture of political sycophancy
The relative merits of monkeys over parrots are not in issue here therefore. Rather the point is that politicians ignorant of the game of cricket should not venture on assessments that do not stand scrutiny. This injunction will stand true in regard to many other areas where Sri Lankan professionals nauseatingly kowtow to politicians, bowing their heads in deference and inviting them as guests of (dubious) honor to events ranging from launches of publications to events of personal felicitation with cameras following them around. This is where the candour of the ‘boy from Rathgama’ would teach a lesson or two to others, including Sri Lanka’s media.

Indeed, what is simply appealing about Malinga calling a spade, very much a spade is not only the colour of the language but also the logic of his words. As he said, ‘how the Minister question the very team he himself had approved … how is it that the fitness levels of cricketers are being put in issue now but none of this was raised when the team beat India earlier in the series.’

One does not have to be a connoisseur of the game to appreciate his categorization of the Minister’s comments as a ‘joke’ is spot-on. So is his infuriated comment that ‘even the best of fielders can drop catches. Those who are talking about cricket without any knowledge can mutter that catches were dropped because players were not fit, but I would like to tell them that even the best of players can drop catches… these armchair critics can say things, but you have to make quick decisions on the field. I do not have time to comment to people who are sitting on easy chairs and making allegations.”

Political grandstanding and the Rule of Law
In theory, prescribing fitness tests for sportsmen/sportswomen is perfectly proper. But the ascribing of a lack of fitness to national cricketers as a reason why Sri Lanka failed to reach the semi-finals of the series by the Minister of Sports, who is supposed to defend those in his care rather than denigrate them publicly is what invites immediate derision. Even as fitness tests are mandated for the cricketers, perhaps we may now propose educational tests for parliamentarians. That would only be fair surely.

But the overall point concerning politicians and the game of cricket has wider ramifications beyond this discussion. And though a link between the game and the Rule of Law may seem imaginative to some, this is precisely the point. The breakdown of a professional system due to political bungling is reflected elsewhere, ranging from the law to the economy. Mix that in with political sycophancy and what emerges is a disastrous cocktail. In 2015, this was supposed to change. Let us be clear. It did not.

And the problem is not only the relevant Minister but politicians of all hues and shades who worm their way into professional bodies. On that larger question, in 2002, a case was brought to the Supreme Court by politician-cricketer Arjuna Ranatunga complaining that his rights had been violated by a gazette notification which disqualified Members of Parliament and other local bodies from being office bearers in sports associations under and in terms of the Sports Law (1973).

Complicity of many in the undermining of institutions
In the true style of that Court (Bench was presided over by former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva), it was opined as per Justice JAN Silva (who also later became Chief Justice) with the other Justices agreeing, that the gazette contained a classification which was arbitrary and devoid of any substantial basis. The Court declared with a flourishing sweep that ‘there is no logic, reason or justification for the decision of the 1st respondent that a Member of Parliament should not hold office in sports associations.’

I recall at the time that (then) Justice of the Supreme Court CV Wigneswaran expressing an opposite view at the early stage of the case. However, his presence was thereafter dispensed with, again very much in the style of those times where Benches were constituted under the hand of the Chief Justice from the most junior judge upwards, in flagrant breach of what had been accepted convention so far.

Certainly the Sri Lankan judiciary’s complicity (along with the supposed crème de la crème of the legal elite) in allowing and at times, even hastening the cancerous spread of politicization into professional areas of functioning, particularly during the last one and a half decades is pronounced. That cannot be denied easily.

But Lasith Malinga, the ‘boy from Rathgama’, would probably be equally scornful of these word games played in the corridors of Hulfsdorp, even as the integrity of the country’s institutions was steadily undermined. And as he forcefully speaks his mind with little regard to the consequences, those of us retaining critical faculties of dissent and critique cannot but agree with him.