Gonata andala....

On that fateful Boxing Day morning when mother earth decided to unleash a bit of her wrath upon some of her dwellers, certain deep rooted things in the day-to-day life in this tiny island took a different course forever, never to come back to its original state. The following episode is another that was unleashed upon Sri Lanka, this time, in this noble game of cricket and how it changed its complexion in the post tsunami era may be forever.

At that time the Saravanamuttu trophy Cricket tournament in Sri Lanka had reached a climax where two of the four teams in the semi-finals were to join their peers in the bigger league. Alas! the cruel tsunami engulfed the coastal belt of Sri Lanka and thus the semi-final of the Sara Trophy was also hit for a six.

Fate has its own funny ways of changing things. In another occurrence in post-tsunami Lankan cricket, the custody of the game’s administration changed and the minister appointed his own minions to administer the game of cricket. The changes started taking place and then with it mushroomed the newly appointed Cricket Interim Committee’s subsection – The new Tournament Committee.

Going back to the Saravanamuttu Trophy semi-final there was a very significant issue. There as the semi-finalists were two teams who had batted more than well for the interim committee team when they were only dreaming of the comfortable seats. This was a good chance of paying back. The tournament committee’s new siblings then decided not to replay the semi-finals and the final which would have cost them only two week-ends, but, decided not to risk any of their batters being left out and up-came all four teams into the bigger league and making that tournament a top heavy 20 teams from the originally big 16 teams they were.

This opened a can of worms. There were yells of protests coming from all quarters and the biggest came from the IC’s own Cricket Committee which was appointed by them with much veneration and also calling them their guardian angels. The chairman of the Cricket Committee Arjuna Ranatunge was one of the vociferous and said that these moves would definitely dilute the entire tournament, but, the IC’s reply to it was “Hey, you are there only in an advisory capacity; however we go the way that the IC executive committee says”. This was the beginning of the end of that enshrined body.

The tournament went on with twenty teams and in the meanwhile it was decided to prune it down to fourteen with the top thirteen teams to stay in the top league while the fourteenth to go into a relegation round with the bottom six teams to ascertain the fourteenth place. To their utter dismay the odd man out in the man in the fourteenth place was their own sibling whom they promoted to the big league in haste.The talk about relegation rounds so-on and so-fourth suddenly stopped. The TC was running in circles in search of fig leaves to cover their nakedness.

Hey! Presto! Now they have come up with another ointment that cures all the tournament ailments in Sri Lankan cricket. No relegation now. Once again the top fourteen it seems are going into a super league where they will be put into two groups of seven each and the two groups will go into a Super Tournament and the rest seems to be hazy at present.

This is not the first or the last instance that this present hierarchy is going make use of present and past cricketers to gain their petty ends.

The first instance was when they called up a committee as their guide as they had no one or very little up where it mattered cricket wise. So they ganged up with the cricket committee. Then after a while dumped them unceremoniously.

Then, when the heat was on for an election, suddenly the cricketers were in the scene. Some said that they were in this camp and the others said that they were to go on their own. It became a huge issue so much so the President of the country also got involved and on the strength of what the cricketers had to say the elections were cancelled. Rumours were rampant and in the midst of it even a government deputy minister gave up his portfolio to serve the cause of cricket. Then, the only cricketer of repute in the hierarchy was also dumped or shown the door. Now the cupboard is really bare. But they say the wagon will go on.

Finally, the question is how long are they to go on like this. Playing the game with the players kept in the darkness.

Sometimes I feel like saying in plain Sinhala “Cricketers lava gonata andala!”.