Sports

Sports

End of the season
Club cricket is the "production line" of cricket in Sri Lanka. Thousands of youngsters engage themselves while at school, in playing through the age groups. Much time, money and effort is put in by the players and the school authorities to prepare players at this "cradle" stage to help them reach the "production line".

I believe just one tenth reaches that "production line". It has become difficult to survive in this game which consumes such a lot of time. Still the responsibility of adult life devours many individuals and their cricketing ambitions are shattered.

Also the situation where a vast majority have to come to Colombo in search of employment makes it tough for many. It restricts opportunity to about a dozen clubs. These and many other factors contribute to a number of "middle of the ladder" players having to quit at an early age. This in time reduces competition for places within the club teams, the representative and national team.

This is an indicator that the organizing of club cricket and the effort that is required to make these tournaments supremely successful is paramount. Unquestionably the best four months for cricket in this country is between December and March of the following year. In this instance, even before the end of December all the major club tournaments would be completed.

The inter provincial tournament is then scheduled to be conducted. Plans must be completed to conduct this tournament but publicity about it is minimal. In terms of the cricket played, this tournament which was inaugurated last year, was a successful venture. It will take a lot of effort to continue and improve on this as almost the entire responsibility is with the governing body.

Getting back to club cricket - the question to be asked is, "Is the club cricket structure producing sufficient top level players? This means players contributing heaps of runs and bags of wickets. At the end of each season there must be a number of batsmen who must have scored in excess of 1500 runs and similarly a number of bowlers who must have captured over 50 wickets. That is an indication that these players have performed. Also an indication that they have gained valuable experience in the two major departments of the game. In my opinion hardly any player reaches these milestones.

No cricketer can improve unless he is constantly performing exceptionally well at the level he is playing. Then he is prepared to take the next step to a level that is higher. In this case with Sri Lanka's domestic cricket players stagnate without much progress. There are many who play as top order batsmen for major clubs who don't score a century in an entire season! Similarly leading bowlers go through an entire season without a bag of five wickets. Players progress rapidly only with big performances. To challenge the players who are in the top division there must be a challenge and quality of cricket is pretty poor. The interest is basically nil and it is more a matter of going through the motions of playing a tournament rather than playing it with purpose.

The main club cricket season for 2004-2005 is nearly done. Has it done what it should have done? That is to produce a handful of names as worthy contenders for the next level. My answer to that, NO. The tournaments have not produced the desired results.

Top