Sports

Sports

Is this a different ball game?
By S.R. Pathiravithana
Panic stations. Red alert. Hit all SOS buttons. Sound the siren. Sri Lankan armada is sinking. On Friday in the second face to face confrontation with them, our neighbours sank the second Lankan ship in the fleet of seven – this time unmercifully. Now the ship’s captain Marvan Atapattu must be praying for divine intervention to pull his fleet through this predicament safely.

But still one cannot cast aside the Sri Lankans as they do possess the wherewithal to bounce back in the series. At the same time as the number two side in ODI rankings it is imperative that Sri Lanka does so as this is one department of the game that Sri Lanka has been excelling in the past. Right now our concerns are not here at the top, but what is going on at the bottom rung – to come out more blandly, domestic cricket.

A while ago we in this column expressed our deep concern about the way things are handled at the junior realms of cricket. There we pointed out that moving away from the practice of quantity to quality has brought down the level in this sphere that they are now losing to even Bangladesh on a regular basis.

To make things worse, people in the higher echelons of the game in the island are seemingly making things more difficult for the sustenance of quality cricket in the domestic sphere.

As we all know as a result of the Tsunami tragedy the P. Saravanamuttu Tournament (which is the second level of the division one tournament) which was in progress at that time came to an abrupt end and the ensuing promotion and relegation system could not be effected as a result. Generally this tournament is taken as the precursor to the promotion and relegation of the Premier League cricket tournament.

Taking one step at a time, it must be admitted that the then Sri Lanka Cricket was dissolved under extraordinary circumstances and recently the secretary to the Ministry of Sports S. Rannuge admitted at an open forum that the reasons for the setting up of the SLC Interim Committee was purely a political matter and that it was carried out with the blessings of the President.
Once again, as far as Sunday Musings is concerned, we are not upbeat or down hearted on matters that brought about the setting up of the Interim Committee.

What we are overly concerned about is that if an organization is taken out of commission by the government of a country, the people whom they appoint instead should be persons of very high integrity and those who will not take any steps which will affect the game in any adverse manner.

The first tinkles began ringing when the SLC tournament committee decided to promote all four semi-finalists in the P. Saravanamuttu Tournament to the main fold. Some accused that this move was made for the benefit of one individual who stood up and fought a lone battle against the former regime who also had their own share of faults which led to their ultimate dissolution.

When an official of the SLC was questioned about this move, the official who opted to remain anonymous, admitted that this was done as a result of the Tsunami situation, but when reminded that moves of this nature are akin to the bartering of quantity to quality he readily admitted that it is so and also added “They may effect a tougher relegation system in the future to remedy the present situation”.

Then in the aftermath of the running of the tournament too there were many accusations levelled at the administration for not conducting tournaments at the proper times and in a proper manner. There are reports reaching out that there are not only chinks in the armour, but gaping holes in the structure with clubs protesting of unfair decisions meted out against them while conducting the tournament.

Just prior to that there were some other allegations of a different ball game that a new brand of cricket balls was being introduced to the tournament.
What does this entire scenario mean? It means that things are not hunky-dory.

Though the surface does not show cracks right now, one could just feel the hollowness underneath. Maybe three decades ago there was only a wafer-thin margin between the three structures of local cricket – school, club and national. But, as time went by the gap slowly began to grow. In the earlier era a school only played about 8 matches a season and the competitiveness in those games were at a very high level. In that era if a schoolboy scored over 500 runs for the season, one can be assured that the batsman would end up playing for the country. But, this situation of a schoolboy coming into the limelight has become far and few between. Let’s leave the national level alone. Now the gap between the school and premier league level is also widening by the hour.

Then when one takes the club level into consideration there too the same discrepancy remains. Here too the gap between the majors in the league and the small fry in the P. Saravanamuttu trophy is also more than huge.Then at the next level there is also a gap between the Premier League and the National ‘A’ and ‘B’ levels, and here too the gap is widening.

All in all when the SLC interim committee was set up along came the SLC Cricket Committee – a high level committee that comprised of a host of cricketing legends of yesteryear. Automatically, when we the lesser mortals saw this list of names and when its Chairman Arjuna Ranatunge spelled out to this column that they were hoping to transform the game to suit modern needs there was a huge sigh of relief. Ironically the hot milk has simmered and is getting old and maybe the time is also running out.

What we have seen from past experience is that those changes that took place in the game at that time are now reflecting in the cricket that is played now at the top of the rung. However if we let that slip away from our grasp at this moment future repercussions will be hard to bear. Looks as if people who are entrusted in putting things right are failing miserably.

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