Upul Chandana should not have been overlooked – Thilanga

By Harry Jayachandra

“Our approach was wrong. The grass was taken off the track on the day match and we went in with four seamers. The boundary lines were 85 yards. Obviously it would be easier to hit a seamer than a spinner. And the bottom line is we did not have a recognized off or leg spinner in the playing eleven. That I believe this was the main reason why we lost the one day series against England,” said former president for the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) Thilanga Sumathipala in an interview with The Sunday Times.

He added: “I believe that Upul Chandana should never have been dropped. He is fantastic fielder, very good lower order batsman and most importantly he was at the peak of his game when he was axed. Obviously when Muttiah Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya are fit, along the captain they are the first three names on the team sheet. But if one of them is not there, then an adequate replacement should be made. Had Chandana not retired, he could have filled in for Muralitharan and the entire of outcome of this series may well have been different.”

When asked to compare the current tour of England with their previous tour in 2001, Sumathipala said: “A lot of planning went into that.

We hosted all the counties. I personally met all the tour operators and they gave their list of requirements. One concern they had was security. The then minister of tourism and sports Lakshman Kiriella helped me a lot along with the police and we were able to sort out that issue. I also brought the tour operators down.

Food wise instead of giving the franchise to one particular group, we told all the five star hotels to give us their menus. Another problem was toilets. I mentioned the fact that when British’s go for fairs and carnivals they use mobile toilets.

The tour operators were agreeable to that and we got down 20 mobile toilets.”

Sumathipala added: “We also coordinated with the Hoteliers Association and they were offering package tours.

The end result was that we had about 12 to 15 thousand people who came down. Knowing the price of tickets for a match in England, we also slightly raised the amount of a ticket. All these people agreed to it. Everybody had a great time and they spent thousands of sterling pounds.

In addition as a result of our understanding with the counties more than 140 cricketers from Sri Lanka have gone to play county or minor league cricket between 2001 and 2007.

This is why I say planning is needed. The schedule for 2008 and 2009 should be out and those involved should coordinate with the tourism ministry to promote both the cricket and Sri Lanka itself as an ideal tourist destination.”