Sunday Times 2
Of bookies and rookies
View(s):For the last few weeks I have been musing about cricket – and pondering on the parlous state of Sri Lanka Cricket.
I can still recall the pride I felt (as I am sure do most of us who were around on March 17, 21 years ago) when Arjuna Ranatunga’s team defeated the more fancied Australians to take charge of the cricket world cup. Just as the West Indies team of the nineteen sixties under Sir Frank Worrell united various island factions, made themselves into a match-winning team and gave the peoples of the Caribbean the right to hold their heads up high, so too did the performance of our cricketers unite all of us in this country during those dark days of 1996.
Winning the 1996 World Cup under Arjuna's captaincy
The heroes of that spectacular World Cup win – Aravinda de Silva who scored a masterly innings of 107, Asanka Gurusingha who smashed 65 and captain Arjuna himself who scored 47 and hit the winning runs – have now given the game away and moved on to middle aged activities. Today Aravinda is a prosperous businessman, involved in selling Barista coffee (in partnership with Ajit Dias, the man vainly trying to make a go of running Sri Lankan Airlines). Arjuna went on to politics and is now a minister. Master blaster Sanath Jayasuriya, the Man of the World Cup series, also went into politics and was a member of parliament for five years, even holding office as a deputy minister. Asanka now has a job as Team Manager of Sri Lankan cricket.
While winning the World Cup in 1996 brought joy, pride and a sense of self-esteem to the people of our cricket-mad country, the success turned out to be a mixed blessing – because money started to come in to Sri Lankan cricket and many outsiders, from businessmen to politicians, wanted a piece of the cake. Some of these folk aspired to office for prestige and others for money.
On March 31, 1996 the respected chairman of the Board of Control for Cricket, Ana Punchihewa, who had overseen the journey of our cricketers from talented underdogs lacking confidence to world cup champions who were holding their own with the best in the world, was ousted as president just two weeks after our world cup victory by businessman Upali Dharmadasa. Since then, for the past two decades, Sri Lanka cricket has been run (with a small number of exceptions) by a few individuals with financial might and political clout – men like the Dharmadasa brothers and present chairman Thilanga Sumathipala.
As the democratic election of Donald Trump so clearly shows us, elections can democratically catapult into office people who are morally and capability-wise quite unfit for the job. As my fellow columnist Neville de Silva aptly put it a couple of weeks ago, cricket in our country today is in the hands of bookies and rookies!
It is true that Thilanga Sumathipala played cricket – for the 1982 Nalanda College first eleven team (where his team mates included Asanka Gurusingha and Roshan Mahanama). That was the year in which the Ranatunga brothers Arjuna and Nishantha of Ananda were pitted against them in the Battle of the Maroons. Sumathipala’s only shining achievements as a cricketer, it would appear, were for his school’s first eleven. There is no record of either of the Dharmadasa brothers Upali nor Jayantha ever playing first class cricket. These however are the men that those who have the votes to vote have entrusted with the responsibility of guiding the destiny of Sri Lanka Cricket!
The famous West Indian writer C.L.R. James in his book Beyond a Boundary argued that what happens inside the boundary line in cricket has an effect on life beyond it – and vice versa. Having been well and truly white washed by India, the performance of our national cricket team has left the vast numbers of cricket fans in this country gutted.
We certainly have talented cricketers in this country – players who have to be nurtured, trained, supported and motivated to perform at their best. It has to be expected that progress with relatively inexperienced players will be punctuated by a few nasty spikes along the way. Chopping and changing teams, dropping a player after a couple of poor performances, pressuring them when they should not be pressurised – this is not how to build a match winning team. Even the great Mahela Jayawardene went through a few batting slumps in his time!
Getting the best out of our present crop of talented young cricketers is not something that should be left to bookies and rookies.
One of C.L.R. James’ best known quotations is “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”.
In Sri Lanka perhaps we should ask the question about these bookies and rookies: “What do they know of running our cricket – who do not cricket know”?