Sports - How to spoil a perfect soup

When Jane Austen wrote her novel Pride and Prejudice in the early eighteen hundreds or 1813 to be exact, would she have known that in a far away island called Sri Lanka the happenings against a scenario totally different from its original plot would be more fitting to this catch-line than the original itself.

It seems that pride and prejudice took place on more than once occasion in the latest skewing of Sri Lanka cricket which finally resulted in the screwing up of a cricket series which anyway got fouled up by the rain.

Some moons ago the then President of Sri Lanka Cricket Mohan de Silva finalized a deal with Taj Television that promised 21 days of Indian Cricket in Sri Lanka within the time of signing in 2004 to 2008. These included three Test matches which amounted to fifteen days of cricket and the rest were to come in the way of ODI’s to culminate with the seven match ODI series which involved India, Sri Lanka and South Africa. For this Sri Lanka Cricket was to receive a juicy sum of US $ 11 million. Being the middle of the South West monsoon season the itinerary was drawn up and most of the initial matches were to be played in almost rainless Dambulla, before the bandwagon moved to Colombo to play the second half of the tournament.

Alas! At this point some ‘blockhead’ sitting in his “air-con” room in Colombo gets this idea! Why give them the credit? We have come here to obliterate that name from Lankan cricket. So let’s move the games to Colombo. So in the guise of a reluctance to deal with a third party or a trust, the set of matches were scheduled to be played in Colombo.

Meanwhile the South African Test series was cut down to two Tests instead of the original three. This was done to accommodate the Indian Team for the tri-nation ODI, as the latter had agreed with the West Indies to play the ODI series against the West Indies in America. The Indians were compelled to take this series to return the favour done to them by the West Indian board by voting for the successful hosting bid of India for the 2011 World Cup.

The Test series finished with an eventful 2-nil victory for Sri Lanka, but some uncertainty loomed over the tri-nation series with the rain setting in and at the same time hostilities rose between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE terrorist attacks took a turn for the worse and hit the streets of Colombo. The whole episode blew out of proportion on the 14th August when a Claymore mine nearly took the life of the outgoing Pakistan High Commissioner in Kollupitiya, just 2 Kms away from the team Hotel. This was after the first match against the hosts Sri Lanka was a wash out.

Meanwhile South African security firm Nichols and Steyn who was represented in Colombo about the pros and cons of the security aspects of the tour had posted a message to the authorities at Durban the situation was not safe in Colombo and had advised the team to pull out from the series.

Reportedly this sparked a wave of activities in Colombo. The local authorities were running helter-skelter seeking ways to salvage the series. From one aspect it was a blotch on Lanka’s national pride and image while on the other, the SLC stood to lose a tidy sum in the Taj TV payment. So much so it is also reported that the local cricket hierarchy had sought the help of the President of the BCCI Sharad Pawar to use his influence as the cabinet minister of the Indian Government to talk to the South African Government to stay put in Sri Lanka. At this juncture South Africa’s cricket chief general Majola was to fly into Sri Lanka, while the ICC asked Dubai-based security firm Olive to submit an independent report on the issue. Meanwhile the Lankan authorities taking for granted that their concerns on the issue were over, re-scheduled the tri-series. The SLC had gone out of the way to get guarantees from all concerned local security authorities on the safety of the participating teams.

Then on the opening day of the re-scheduled tri-nation series game which was to be played between Sri Lanka and India which apparently was also washed off, the South African team announced that they were definitely going back because of security concerns. They had taken this decision on the report filed by Olive on the issue.

Furious SLC CEO Duleep Mendis told The Sunday Times “It is only a four-hour flight from Dubai to Colombo, but Olive did not bother to come over here and ascertain the ground situation. When I asked head of Olive Richard Knowlton he told me that they had only consulted Nichols and Steyn and that was sufficient. Had they come over to Sri Lanka and had spoken to our local security authorities and then filed the same report, it would have been something, but, this is highly unacceptable. As promised General Majola even did not come over here to assess the situation.”

Then when asked how this would impact the monetary aspect of the agreement between Taj TV and the SLC the CEO said “Now the major portion of the monies have been paid and now it is the match-by-match fees that are remaining. For this South Africa will have to pay compensation to us on a pro-rata basis. They are liable to pay up to a maximum of 2.5 million dollars, but the ICC will finally decide upon what the final payment will be.”

Failing to hold on to the tri-nation series the Lankan authorities sought a five ODI with their neighbours, but with a heavy schedule ahead of them they too were not keen on a five-match ODI, but settled for a three-match series. Now the question remains as to how Taj TV takes up their part of the loss. Would they come back asking for their pound of flesh from the Lankan authorities as they have fallen short of at least three days of Indian cricket in Sri Lanka?

Finally the question is what if the matches were never shifted from their original venue and the cricketers were far away from the quagmire back in Colombo?