Mentor & implementer

At present Sri Lanka cricket is experiencing some tentative moments. There are many fingers pointed at many persons and many an incident. But, in short when you take the whole scenario in a nutshell what you see is a team that is going through a transitional period where uncertainty presides and with ‘good-byes’ on the card are we sowing the correct seeds to cater food to fulfil the present hunger in the national grid?

As laymen we can only speculate. But, to get the real answers to the question one must get to the right source who will have a professional insight into the problem and is in a position to heed the clarion call. In our quest we made a stop and had a chat with none other than former Sri Lanka opening batsman turned Coach Chandika Haturusinghe who is now the mentor and implementer of the Sri Lanka ‘A’ team and also has the task of providing the necessary ingredients to make up a successful short term and long term national grid.

The man who made up his coaching background in Australia and England prior to becoming Sri Lanka’s first player cum coach at Moors SC and who thus brought them their first ever division one ‘plum’ in 96 years of existence in his second year in the job before moving on to take over the job as national coach of the UAE, gave us his part of the story. “When I took over the job in September 2006, first thing that I noticed was that it was quantity rather than quality in the ‘A’ team squad. There were forty two players in the ‘A’ team pool at that juncture and I was of the view that it was not the correct strategy. So I made a recommendation to have nineteen shadow players to cover the nineteen contracted players in the national squad and put this lot also under central contracts. In this manner I had the opportunity of keeping a close tab on each player and whenever the need arose to provide suitable players akin to the request. This may be a request due to an injury or loss of form or else a genuine filling of a long term void.”

We put the question if the “A’ team players do not get jaded and frustrated when the top team players go on hanging on to their positions for too long. The answer was simple “Once they are in there with a chance, it is up to them to put pressure. However the final decision lies at the hands of the national selectors.”

Then the ‘A’ team coach explained about the yardstick that is adopted to ascertain the players. “First is the given player’s potential and the approach to the game. We have frequent matches between the ‘A’ team and the national squad. Then there are “A” team engagements and then come the local tournament matches. For instance during the last fourteen months players of the calibre of Chamara Silva (whose comeback after 1999 could be taken in as a debut) who came back with a Test knock of 150, thereafter Malinda Warnapura, Chanaka Welagedera, Ishara Amarasinghe made their debut. Then Michael Vandort, Thilan Samaraweera, Sujeewa Silva, Jehan Mubarak and Rangana Herath regained their places in the Test side.

Then in One-day cricket Dilruwan Perera, Ishara Amarasinghe and Mahela Udawatte came out for the first time. Even though Chamara Kapugedara was not a player who was contracted under the ‘A’ team he spent a lot of time with me when he was not in national service. Besides this, Kaushal Lokuarachchi and Gayan Wijekone made their comeback into the twenty20 squad. In addition, these players were also responsible for five Test centuries. Also during our last tour to the West Indies it was two of the ‘A’ players who headed the batting -- Warnapura in Tests and Udawatte in One Day Internationals. Also I must add though Dilruwan Perera could not make it in Australia in the ODIs when he was given the chance he is a very good investment for the future. “However there is one point that I must stress. When a new player comes into the national squad – say to replace Jayasuriya or Atapattu one cannot measure them by the same yardstick as their peers.

The outgoing seniors came into that position by gradually rolling through the mill and being in the game for 10-15 years. In the same vein you can not expect these young players to become world beaters overnight. They too have to graduate one-step-at-a-time. It is only a minute lot who become stars overnight. Obviously during a transition period there will be ups and downs. May be some guys held on to their positions a bit too long and we are experiencing the repercussions now, but, we are gradually getting through. However replacing two bowlers like Murali and Vaas will be a difficult task for any country. Especially see Vaas – a fast bowler playing in the sub-continent for about fifteen years without injury and being successful at the same time is amazing. However I view that young Welagedera has the potential of being a bowler who could be of good use for us in the future. Then along with Malinga, Maharoof and Dilhara – the other players like Nuwan Kulasekera, Thilan Thushara, Ishara Amarasinghe and Sujeewa Silva, our fast bowling looks good”

Then we asked how come that the Australians find their replacements to the outgoing peers pretty soon. For this he pointed out that Australia has a methodical grooming system and when it comes to retirement of a senior player the newcomer has played an adequate number of matches and has the confidence when he really comes on stage. At the same time when Australia had not won matches in India for a period of time what did they do? They started sending a string of Academy and ‘A’ team tours to India and then when the younger set of players of the calibre of Michael Clerk toured India with their national side they were a very confident lot who could contribute towards beating India in India. On the same lines I am looking at getting our ‘A’ team boys at least a tour each to South Africa and Australia, so that they can get a good exposure”.

In conclusion Chandika Haturusinghe explained his game plan. He has divided the game plan into two main segments – Quantifiable and Unquantifiable. That also works under different segments of Technical, Tactical, Physical, Mental and lifestyle. In these segments he goes into minute details where even their private lifestyles are taken into consideration and worked on. As a result there were twenty two first class centuries which includes the five Test centuries scored by the ‘A’ team players. Then Haturusinghe stressed upon players like Malinda Warnapura, Mahela Udawatte and Thilina Kandambi who scored double hundreds and big hundreds as a result of going through the mill and added that he also has introduced the same expert backing that the national team has also into the ‘A’ team so that they will not find much of a difference when they make the shift to where the ‘big boys’ are.