One bad egg

There is a local tale about a monkey who tried to meddle with a piece of stick that a wood cutter had stuck to keep a split tree trunk apart and busted one of his own monkey parts. Whenever I think of that story I just cannot help but, think of our own national selectors. Even for a minute I do not think that all the eggs in the basket are bad, but the actions of one arrogant peasant leads up to situations where the whole bunch at times are branded as Muppets and Jokers.

When Mr. Tom Moody took over the reins as coach in Sri Lanka we hear that he mooted an ideology of transforming the national squad into a youth-based one from the blend of youth and experience that already existed. During the same period Mr. Greg Chappell who took over the shepherding of Indian cricket also left the Australian shores with a bag full of thoughts of changing the existing face of Indian cricket. He began there with the Ganguly tampering and in Sri Lanka Moody began with the Jayasuriya crucifixion.

In India Chappell won the day with the backing of the political situation and thus Indian cricket went through some shudders till Chappell was out of Indian cricket and Ganguly was back in the fold. Today Ganguly is one of the main contributors in a line-up where even the multitalented Yuvraj Singh cannot find a permanent slot. Just see the Indian line-up – there talent talks. In the opening slot Wasim Jaffar, Dinesh Karthick and Gautham Gambir have almost ousted the experienced Virender Sehwag while in the middle order the experienced lot of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly are batting wonderfully well and thus making the Indian batting the only batting order in the world who could match the Australian guile on their own home soil. Now Ganguly goes to the extent of boasting that they are the next best side to Australia, but with this side at hand, they are in a position to beat an Australian team that does not possess a Warne-McGrath combination. Mind you the last time the Indians went to Australia they flew back home with their heads high with a one-all draw series under the guidance of Sourav Ganguly himself.

With their series win against England, Sri Lanka is on the upward trend in the rankings, but, they lost both their Test matches to Australia in spite of the latter coming into the series after a ten-month hibernation along with a overhauled bowling attack.

Going back to the Moody episode – while Chappell fouled it up in India, Jayasuriya lived next to the right Joneses and knew the right so and so that the overhauling of the selection committee was the ultimate result of that ill timed move. Living up to the fact that so and so kept faith on Jayasuriya, he performed while helping Sri Lanka to 5-0 Asian wash of the England team in the ODI’s on their own home soil.

The Jayasuriya saga ended for the time-being there, but subtle and quite obvious manoeuvrings against certain players who were already in the side was on and it was needling victims in spite of Sri Lanka doing well in the World Cup to end up as runners-up and then performing reasonably well in the post-WC run.

In the post - World Cup era the Atapattu saga had become a well known secret till it blew out of proportion in the “before-and-during” period of the Australian tour.

When one thinks back on that tour, even Sri Lankans were gargling about winning a series in Australia for the first time. But, did we carry the correct package to Australia to have that dream come true? Definitely the answer should be big “No” because Sri Lanka lost both Test matches for the want of batsmen who had the staying power in the middle. With one failure the selectors were more than happy to “kick-out” dogged Thilan Samaraweera out of the squad, after he had such a good home record. Then a few bad moments against England in the ODI’s saw Thillekeratne Dilshan being thrown out of the side from a Test series, when he had not done that badly in the Test arena.

The blasphemy of the selectors is that their second choices are substandard, yet they are very reluctant to admit the fact and bring in remedial measures. Even during the Test series against Bangladesh there were rumours about Sanath playing the last few Test matches and the selectors being ready to make the request from him? Then came the question about Chaminda Vaas’ ability to lead the Lankan seam attack, but he proved them wrong with a splendid spell in the final Test match.

It surfaced again till he shut them up even for the time being with his “my arm will provide you with the answers” attitude against England. What a difference it made to see T.M. Dilshan in that number six slot. When he walked on to the wicket with the Sri Lankan batting hanging on a tentative 138 for 4 with the English bowlers wagging with their tails up, Dilshan took the fight to them, made them err and then put the Lankan innings on course along with his skipper Mahela Jayawardena who came up with yet another gem of an effort. To cap his effort with the bat Dilshan then took the second English wicket when he tolled Bell run out with a direct throw. With his demise England once again proved the domino theory.

Coming back to the selectors now more than often they tend to put their foot in the mouth by making the wrong choices. What the country needs now is the inclusion of players who will perform there out in the middle on a regular basis and may be with a good track record, but not so-and-so’s relation coming from the same school that so-and-so went to.