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Like the Scottish singing wonder Susan Boyle who took the music world by storm just a year ago, Sri Lankan medium fast bowler Franklyn Saliya Ahangama had a meteoric rise in cricket when he made his Test debut in 1985-86 against the Indians and helped th country gain its first Test victory in a team that included Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vensarkar and Kapil Dev along with the prize wicket of Mohammed Azharuddin in the fourth ball he bowled at that level of the game.
In that series he took 18 wickets at 19.33. He had two fifers – 5 for 109 and 5 for 52, but unlike Boyle, Ahangama could not remain a draw card as the following captains never thought he was good enough to take wickets at that level of the game. Yet he did not let the emotions take over his actions and hate the game, but remained an active player till 1991 at club level and then turned an administrator cum commentator till he decided to pursue a different dream down under and become a full time cricket coach.
Saliya Ahangama |
When the Sunday Musings caught up with him Saliya had just returned to Victoria after a tour of Sri Lanka where he took a bunch of teenagers which belonged to three age groups to experience the spinning wickets and playing conditions in Asian countries.
Years of coaching in Australia has also made him understand the Australian junior cricket system. In a frank one-to-one Saliya agreed to share his thoughts and go on a comparison on Lankan and Australian Junior cricket and how they work. He said “Sri Lanka School cricket standards are far superior to that of the Australian School cricket over here. However the pathway programmes run by the respective states are much more organized. They go from under 13, under 15 to under seventeen along with the under 14 under 16 and under 18s what is called a district programme where players from a district is combined. Altogether there are 12 districts at work here.
“The under 14 16 and under 18 cricket is played at a higher level. That cricket is played on turf. That is where the selectors catch them for the Victorian state teams and select them for the Victorian grade respective junior team and then elevate to the Victorian under 19 team.
That is where they find the representative sides for Victoria – the Victoria under 15 side, the Victoria under 17 and the Victoria under 19 side. Once you come into that pathway programme you are sent to the high performance centre and looked after. Cricket at the state level is of a very high quality.”
Ahangama explained further on the subject of Junior cricket “Here from the under 19 level we look at the inter-state tournaments which is a very high standard. However there is parity between the Australian under 19 cricket and the Lankan under 19 cricket as there is focus on school cricket in Sri Lanka. But, the difference between the sides ends there. The inter-state cricket that follows at different levels the standards are much higher than what prevails in Sri Lanka. It is high time that we in Sri Lanka work out a system like the pathway programme for coaching and a internal cricket system where there is no break between School Cricket and Premier League cricket. Back home even in the under 23 tournament there are a certain lot who are already playing in the Premier League tournament, this means there is a talented lot of players who have just left school warming the benches.
Ahangama then explained that is the point that we lack in Sri Lankan cricket. In Sri Lanka the junior level cricket is prevalent mainly in the schools arena and once a cricketer finishes his cricket at school level there is no focused field for them unless they opt to join a club and play under 23 cricket, which he describes as a “huge gap”. The difference between the Lankan system and the Australian system lies there. The Australian system is continuous from the junior level and the Lankan system has a dip between school cricket and club cricket.
Ironically even the Lankan inter-provincial system which is supposed to be the main tournament lacks focus. The players for the senior tournament are chosen in an ad-hoc basis where players born in the South go on to represent the Kandurata. When a proper system would be introduced to the Provincial system in Sri Lanka is anybody’s guess, but it is the only system that could take the Lankan cricket to the next level.
Ahangama reckons the provincial system is the way out for Sri Lanka cricket. He said “That is the way to go about it. If you take interstate cricket here taking the national sides – the Australian under 19 side or the Australian ‘A’ team is selected from the state sides. Provincial cricket in Sri Lanka obviously will cover a bigger area than what is prevalent now. Right now besides Galle, Kandy and Kurunegala the rest of the cricket in Sri Lanka is based in Colombo. Provincial Cricket will provide a bigger catchment area for players to be involved and no young cricketer of promise will miss it out. Then if you infuse a good junior cricket structure at provincial level it will help the game further. (I am aware such a programme is prevalent in Sri Lanka, but how effective this programmes is, is the question). “
Through an effective junior system Sri Lanka could build up a good bank of players who could be harvested and brought on to the mainstream. For instance within the past few years Sri Lanka saw the emergence of two players in Lasith Malinga and Ajantha Mendis who came from the oblivion rather than the conventional system. Ahangama feels that through system like the pathway programme and a responsible junior selecting system, Sri Lanka Cricket could put the Provincial Cricket into its proper perspective and take Lankan Cricket into its next level.
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