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Sports

When the blind lead the blind
By S. R. Pathiravithana
On Thursday our neighbours at the other end of the Bay of Bengal set foot in Sri Lanka for their official tour of three one-dayers and two Tests. Upon their arrival their present coach and our Ex. Davnell Whatmore had quipped that they are ready to beat Sri Lanka in their own den. However just a moment! This is not a harangue about that quip of Whatmore but, an expression of a view that may have prompted him to speak out so loudly.

Coming out more bluntly, after the Sri Lanka under 15 team had lost to Bangladesh here in Sri Lanka a few moons ago, now our under seventeen national team have repeated that same feat in a shameful manner while taking part in a tournament in Malaysia -- failing to score a mere 108 runs for a win. Then in their second engagement in the same tournament, Bangladesh thrashed Sri Lanka once again by a huge margin of seven wickets.

One thing is crystal clear; Sri Lanka’s junior cricket at present is not in a steady decline but at a nose dive powered by high octane gasoline. First, the under 15 and the under 17 teams slide to degrading defeats to Bangladesh. Parallel to that the Sri Lanka under nineteeners go to England with an underaged team and make a bloody hash of it.

What on earth has brought about this pathetic situation to Sri Lanka junior cricket? About two decades ago the Sri Lanka juniors were among the best or better than the rest in the world. Ironically today even the minnows of world cricket are making us the laughing stock.

Just upon their arrival in the island after the severe thrashing that they received at the hands of the English teenagers, the Sri Lanka under 19 team manager went on record admitting that overall English cricket at this level is improving vastly. If they have improved leaps and bounds at junior level where has our cricket gone? Has it gone on reverse gear? Your answer is as good as mine!

There was a time when Sri Lanka had names like Bandula Warnapura, Duleep Mendis , Roy Dias, Ajith de Silva or much later Asanka Gurusinghe, Roshan Mahanama, Aravinda de Silva making national tours in the same line up. But, today in any of these squads can you point out one single player who will be an automatic choice for the senior team?

To get a better insight into the matter The Sunday Musings sought the assistance of a past cricketer who had played the game at the highest level and who is also a junior coach, curator and an umpire at the highest level. The former cricketer said “It is indeed a sad plight. But what about the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association?

How many incumbent officials have played the game at a decent level and how many have a proper coaching background? To guide the future generation of cricketers the men at the top too should have a good insight of the game, if not the endproduct will be not of good quality!”

Then Musings turned to the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association and asked them as to how they managed to come up with an under 17 team with these credentials. The secretary of the SLSCA, M.T.A. Rauff was good enough to explain the situation on their behalf. He said “Initially there are four age groups under which we conduct tournaments--Under 13, Under 15, Under 17 and Under 19. The executive committee of the SLSCA is also responsible for the selection committees and we have selected five officials from the SLSCA as selectors. They are either masters’-in-charge or school coaches. The criteria that we look into about these persons are that they should either posses some-kind of a coaching certificate or they should be the cricket coaches in their respective schools”

Rauff continued “As to the under seventeen squad that went to Malaysia, when we first commenced the selection only 5 or 6 matches in the tournament were completed and we initially called players who had scored centuries and bowlers who had taken over five wickets in certain matches and held the initial trials. At the second stage we invited players who had scored 150 runs in the tournament so far and bowlers who had taken thirteen wickets or more. Then we had 40 players that went through 5 trial matches with at least two trials per player.”

“At the same time we had two players namely Madhawa Warnapura and Ashan Priyanjan who were stand-by players for the under 19 tour of England – players who were selected by the national selectors. So even though these two players did not do well in the trials they became automatic choices on the strength of being players who were hand-picked by the national selectors. At the same time we were looking more towards players with all-round abilities, so in the pool there may have been better batsmen and better bowlers, but we gave preference to players with all-round ability”.

Oh Blimey! They select a national squad leaving behind better batsmen and better bowlers and lay emphasis on all-rounders – or else the Jack-of-all-trades and masters of none. Come on Mr. SLSCA you must get your priorities correct. Sometime ago speaking to these same columns the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Cricket Committee, Arjuna Ranatunge said that his committee along with the new Sri Lanka cricket coach Tom Moody are contemplating taking a very close look at the junior cricket structure in the country in order to take some meaningful remedial measures. We feel the time is ripe now. If this situation is allowed on further even a junior team from Bermuda will beat Sri Lanka in its own den and ten years later one can just imagine what would happen to our senior cricket.

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