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Congratulations. This little message is for all winners of Friday’s Schoolboy Cricketer of the year show who are still savouring their moment of glory after a full season of hard work under the blistering sun.
This show, which has deep roots of over three decades, has seen cricketers in the calibre of Ranjan Madugalle, Arjuna Ranatunge, Roshan Mahanama, Marvan Atapattu, Muttiah Muralitharan, and also Sri Lanka’s youngest batting prodigy Dinesh Chandimal who claimed the accolade last year, walk down that aisle and stand gleaming above the rest of the best to be crowned as the Schoolboy Cricketer of the year.
 Undoubtedly you are the best of the cricketing talent in the island and it is you who will take the game of cricket deep into the first century of the second millennium.
Yet, unlike the cricketers of yester-year, there will be many pots of gold along the way and also pit falls that may suck you into a journey of no return.
There will be many who would tell you about the good side of cricket, but I have chosen today to talk to you about the ugly side of it.
Now you must be fully aware of the drama that is taking place in England on match fixing and the shame on the names of the cricketers who are being dragged along the streets of London, during this holy month of Ramadan.
Match fixing and Pakistan cricket are getting far too familiar and it does not augur well for the modern game of cricket at all.
Adding insult to injury embroiled in the saga is the captain of the Pakistan team Salman Butt who took over the captaincy from former skipper Mohammed Afridi only during this English summer along with teenager Mohammed Aamir and co-seamer Mohammed Asif who is not a new comer to controversy.
In 2006, there was a cricket controversy involving Asif, after he tested positive for anabolic steroid, Nandrolone, before having a ban imposed on him overturned on appeal. He was later withdrawn from Pakistan's World Cup squad with an unrelated injury. Further cricket controversy followed when he was detained in Dubai suspected of having drugs on his person and was then found to have tested positive to a banned substance during the Indian Premier League. And now in his third act outside the niceties of cricket he is accused by the News of the World of deliberately bowling no-balls in return for payment from betting syndicates.
Even prior to this the Pakistan team was accused of being involved in match fixing controversies including the first Test in their last tour to Sri Lanka in Galle where from a certain match winning situation they succumbed to a surprise defeat which sparked of many an insinuation, but, now once again in London this particular match has come into focus.
A few decades ago when Test cricket was the only form of top cricket the authorities felt being a five day affair the game was losing its sheen. After much deliberation they found a way of finishing a cricket match in just one day and thus the Limited overs version was born. Even the limited overs version was ambling along till the more populated Indian sub-continent grabbed momentum and became the major player in the symphony.
With the cricket in India-Pakistan becoming money spinning engagements there were a series of matches conducted in Sharjah, but, all matches at this venue had to be taken off under controversial circumstances.
Then in another explosion former South African cricket captain – the late Hanse Cronje was shamed and removed from his captaincy for match fixing and so was former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin and also the former Pakistan cricket captain Salim Malik.
Not only these mentioned there are other cricketers who have been forced to cut short their careers after they were caught stuck with match fixing.
Earlier a very senior cricket official once explained how this vicious circle operates. Initially the interested parties make connections with people who are connected to the cricketers or with places that the cricketers frequent. At these points the racketeers get introductions to the cricketers and pose off as very influential and moneyed persons and gain their confidence. Once they develop the association they keep embroiling the unsuspecting cricketer till they take him to a point of no return and from that point onwards they keep usurping information from the cricketers disregarding the future of their careers. Finally when the curtain falls the cricketer has already walked to the point of no return and from there what happens becomes public knowledge and most occasions the accused cricketer does not cross the boundary line anymore.
This is the worst situation in cricket. Besides this the other major demeanour is being indicted and proclaimed of taking unauthorized performance enhancing drugs. Though this is a lesser offence than match fixing, it is another avenue that a budding cricketer must not try to tread upon.
The third is the general code of discipline a cricketer must follow.
The above mentioned are the avenues that you must be aware of and try to abhor on all counts. Anyway if one could hit the right pitch in cricket he would be a wealthy person in today’s context. At the same time if you can remain within the general disciplines and follow the code of ethics you could have a future in the game.
The ones who have shamed themselves and the country have dragged the game in to muddy waters. But, at the same time there are players like Sachin Tendulkar, Roshan Mahanama and Mahela Jayawardena who are still in the game or have moved out gracefully but have not sought short cuts to fame money and glory.
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