5th Column

My dear Angie and the Sri Lankan cricket team,

I thought I must write to you because everyone is talking about you and blaming you for your recent defeats in the desert where you lost to Bangladesh and even to Afghanistan. This must be an awful time for you, but you must be thankful that no one has set your houses on fire, like they do in India!

I am writing to tell you that you need not despair. We in Paradise are a very forgiving nation. While people will blame you for a couple of months at most, they will forget all about that very soon and it will be business as usual – and you can continue losing to countries like Bangladesh on a regular basis.

If you doubt what I am saying, just look at Mahinda maama and his team. It was only a few years ago that everyone blamed him and sent him home, saying they didn’t want him back. Now, many are clamouring for his return even though his team consists of the same people who caused his downfall.

Besides, we are a nation that is easily satisfied. We always talk of our 2500-year-old culture and heritage because we don’t want to achieve anything more for the next 2500 years. Similarly, we also talk of our World Cup win in 1996. I am quite sure we won’t win another one for the next 1996 years!

Angie, I know that people are heaping blame on you because you happen to be the captain of the team. It is true that your own performances were not your best. Some people have seized this chance and are demanding your resignation. My advice to you is don’t go anywhere, just stay where you are.

If you need help on ‘How to continue as leader while your team continues to lose’, I think we have the world’s best expert on that subject with us: just ask the Green Man. Just in case people get ideas about sacking you, make an announcement that you are grooming the next generation to take over in 2030.

You and the team could also try a few excuses that might convince our public that the defeats you suffered were in fact, not your fault and had to do with something else. I am not sure which airline you travelled in to Dubai but if it was SriLankan, you could always blame it on the peanuts!

Angie, I wonder whether you had any milk provided to you when you were playing in Dubai. If you did, then you have an excuse for your disastrous performance. You could claim that the Bangladeshis and the Afghans got together and contaminated your milk, and that is why you performed so poorly.

There are other strategies you can use to distract the public, so that they are no longer angry about your performance. For instance, Angie, could someone claim that there is a plot to assassinate Hathurusinghe and you? If you can arrange that, people will stop blaming you and even feel sorry for you.

Many are saying that Sri Lanka Cricket merits an investigation by a special commission, but you need not worry, Angie. Maithri appoints commissions only to probe matters where he feels the Greens or Mahinda maama are at fault. So, as long as Thilanga heads cricket, there will be no commission.

There is, however, something else that you can do to prevent public anger against you. Your next major assignment is the World Cup next year. If you ask Faiszer, he might be able to postpone that for you because he is an expert at postponing this, that and the other – nothing seems to be impossible for him.

You must also be wary about people like Dilshan saying he wants to return to the team and play again. I suppose some could argue that if we get Dilshan, Mahela, Sanga, Murali and even Sanath to return and then lose all our matches, they would still have played as well as you did, so why not try that?

There was a time not so long ago when our Paradise was at war and it was only the achievements of our cricketers that brought the country together and brought a smile to our faces. So, maybe it is all Mahinda maama’s fault because he ended the war – and look at what has happened to our cricket now?

Angie and the cricket team, you shouldn’t take the criticism that is coming your way personally. Ever since we won the World Cup, politicians have become cricketers and cricketers have become politicians. So, in a country where nothing seems to work, why should cricket be an exception?

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS – Angie, I think you missed a trick in Dubai. You should have got Maithri to call you while you were there. If he did that and if no one in your team answered your phones, he would have recalled the team to Colombo immediately. Then, you wouldn’t have lost – and no one could have blamed you!