Father Time stops for no one. He just travels through any stubborn object or person. And while he moves on he sees the changes coming, it happening, the vacuum appearing and the solution coming.
Yes, he may have seen how the Lankans strived for the past twenty four months or more making themselves ready to take on the huge challenge of facing the cricket World Cup. He also may have noticed how the Lankan cricket machine left no stone unturned while in preparation to take up the challenges ahead.
 Yet all those efforts went awry when the confident Lankans who roared to the final and lived with their heads held high till that fateful catch was totally misjudged and spilled like a hot potato. From that point onwards it was a case of trying to learn “what hit us!!!” First came the news of skipper Kumar Sangakkara abdicating from the one-day version of the game. Though it is hard to buy such an explanation of him contemplating the move for some time before the World Cup proper, we swallow the bitter pill.
Sangakkara was a captain who believed in himself. Living by his belief he led from the front and always was in the thick of happenings whether it was in a plus sense or a minus sense.
Yet we see his abdication more as a personal decision than as a decision taken in the national interest. For instance when his predecessor, Mahela Jayawardena, was forced to step down, the whole cricketing gamut knew what led to his untimely decision and also about the prince in waiting. So the power transfer was not an arduous task.
Moreover, to take home the vehicle from the very inception Sangakkara had the support of Jayawardena and Muttiah Muralitharan – a combination of contribution that any leader would envy.
Yet, the vacuum has now been set. Both Sangakkara and Jayawardena have stepped aside to let two others to take the baton and run. Anyway whoever takes on the baton can heave a sigh of relief that both Sanga and Mahela are still members of the playing team and only Muralitharan has bid adieu.
The strongest mentions for the crown so far are the names of T.M. Dilshan and Angelo Mathews. Yes, we are aware of the intricacies involved. Still Dilshan’s claim to the throne goes purely on his leading the Lankan side which was sans the regular stalwarts to Zimbabwe and winning a tri-nation that included the hosts and a not so strong Indian outfit. Still Dilshan has the credentials of leading a team tagged the Sri Lankan national Xl. So if the Mathew mantra has to work, it will have to wait till such time the transfer would be more cordial.
Then a while after the Sangakkara bolt, another also was delivered – this time was the other wheel of the vehicle – the national selection committee members tendering their resignations two weeks before their term ended.
In his parting speech the selection committee chairman Aravinda de Silva spelled out that even two weeks earlier they took that decision purely on one principal. That was – had they taken a collective decision as a committee and moved on, two weeks later the incoming committee would have the burden of carrying on with a decision that they had not taken. That is acceptable and we buy it (or can we?). He pointed out that since there is a vacuum and that everything has to begin from scratch, it would be easier for a new committee to infuse complete fresh thinking.
Coming back to the captaincy issue the challenge at hand is the tour of England beginning in the second half of May. First come the Tests and there at the helm still is Sangakkara.
In this excursion, the Lankans will be sans their champion spinner Muralitharan who rocked the Englishmen a while ago. Yet, if the rumour of Lasith Malinga not taking part in the Test segment is true, the Lankans even with Sangakkara and company will be in deep trouble as Malinga is the next generation of the match-winning formula that Sri Lankan possesses in the field of bowling.
Then, from June 25 come the shorter version contests beginning with the T-20 tie at Bristol. Thereafter till July 9 the new look Lankans under Mr. So-and-So will take the field playing the five One-day Internationals.
Initially it is this challenge that the new set of selectors would have to encounter. First, till the beginning of May the majority of the Lankan stalwarts would be bartering their cricketing skills to the pay of the Indian Premier League Cricket and the new look side would have hardly two weeks together before taking wing to Her Majesty’s land.
Adding to the woes of the Lankans, promising Angelo Mathews, one of the mentioned players, may be out of action due to his lingering injury, according to informed sources. So in the short-term the race looks like a one-horse competition open for Dilshan.
Also during his parting address Aravinda de Silva professed some words of wisdom about where we should go and what we should look for in the long run to the next world cup. He was of the view that as the next World Cup will be played in Australia and New Zealand, the selectors in the long run should encourage players with skills that would suit the Australian conditions. He said the accent should be shifted to the search of good fast bowlers who would be able to exploit the conditions prevailing in Australia and New Zealand.
Then at the same time he also pointed out that even the opening batsmen should be of more sober gender and not the flash-dash kind we possess at the moment. He explained that on Australian wickets batsmen especially at the top of the order should be ready to build an innings rather than try to run away with a shoot-them-all tactic.
Aravinda was also of the view that one of the biggest banes in our cricket is our attitude towards the game. He said that even against all odds a team should always try to turn tables on the opposition. He said he was very disappointed in the manner that the Lankan heads fell down when things went wrong in Mumbai last Saturday.
“That is the difference between the Australian cricketers and us. Where talent is concerned we stand above, but, the killer attitude and the killer instinct in Australian brand of cricket is far superior. They do not want to lose a match. Even with ten runs to go they would be looking to bring in a new wave of pressure and change the course of the game to pull off a win. That is why they have been so successful in their cricket so far,” the Little Master of Sri Lanka batting said. |
E-mail
