My Dear Mahela,

I thought I must write to you when I heard that you had resigned as captain of Sri Lanka’s cricket team. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised about your decision considering the manner in which our team was performing in recent times, but then again, I was.

At first, I thought you had resigned because someone had asked you to, so that you could contest the Western provincial council election. That is because the only reason why people are resigning from the positions they hold these days is in order to contest the provincial council polls.

And what is more, I am told that both the blue and green parties are on the lookout for a good chief ministerial candidate for the Western provincial council. Now, you would make an ideal candidate, wouldn’t you, because everybody knows you already. Besides, even now you have billboards all over the city and television advertisements too, so you won’t have to spend any more money on publicity!

Then, when I learnt that you hadn’t resigned because of the elections I thought the Supreme Court must have ordered you to step down. You see, that seems to be the only other reason why people resign from positions of power and responsibility. If you are in any doubt about that, you should ask your chief selector!

Now they tell me you didn’t resign because of that either. Then I thought you may have resigned because someone may have threatened you. You know, the kind of situation where you are on your way to cricket practices and four motor cyclists stop you forcibly and bash you up? But then, that didn’t happen to you either, did it?

It was then that I thought you may be resigning from the captaincy of our team because you wanted to change sides and play for India, perhaps? After all, there are those who would argue that you were playing for India in the last one day series!

But, in this country, the only other reason why people resign from one team is to cross over to the other team with the hope that they get better perks and privileges, isn’t it?

But they now tell me that you resigned not because of any of these reasons but because you felt your batting is not what it used to be and that it was the right time to go and also because you felt that your successor-whoever it is-should have enough time to mould a team of his own. In fact, they also tell me that you resigned despite several requests for you to stay on!

I am not quite sure what to say about all this, Mahela. You seem to have more courage than most of our politicians-and indeed more than even some of our past Presidents who have tried to stay on in office when everyone wanted to see them leave.

So, we must wish you luck-and now that you are not the skipper any more you might need plenty of it, just to stay in the team. But I must warn you that whatever you decide to do in the future, you shouldn’t take to politics because if you are resigning the moment you are out of form and starting to lose a few matches, you are just not suited for that-and if you have any doubts about that, just ask Uncle Ranil will you?

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS-Whatever you do, there is one job that you shouldn’t take on, Mahela and that is to head the Cricket Board. After all, past captains don’t make the best administrators and now we know that from experience, don’t we?