It was very pathetic to see our lads losing both Tests and One Day series. To me it shows our poor performance in alien soil. Easily we could have drawn the Test series by nil-all. On the whole our players did not show any class in the Test series. English players dominated the three matches. But rain and bad weather helped us to draw two matches. It is difficult to believe that a Test side losing all ten wickets in less than 25 overs. We had two world class batsmen in calibre of Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara in our side.
 I felt that ordinary schoolboys would have done better than our national players. Right through the Test series our bowling attack was not up to the mark. It was a mediocre bowling attack. English players were treating our bowlers the way they wanted. They had no respect for our pacemen or spinners. But some of our young bowlers have a lot of potential. It is impossible to win a Test match with this type of ordinary bowling attack. Our selectors should persist with these youngsters and give them more exposure. Then these up and coming players will deliver goods to our country. If they keep on changing players every now and then we will not be able to produce any giants like Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vass. It is not easy to win Test matches especially in foreign countries. Our selectors should know this when they do the selections.
 It was very unfortunate that we lost the One Day series. When it came to the final match as all of us knew it was two each. We had every opportunity of winning the final match. When the golden egg was in our hand we let it go. Some of our batsmen threw their wickets at the vital moments. When it came to the 48th over Suraj Randiv’s run out was unpardonable. It was a silly run out. Then again in the 49th over Angelo Mathews gifted his wicket.
He hit a cow shot and got out. When we lost the last wicket there were 10 balls remaining. I could not understand why our players were in such a hurry to finish the match. That shows our players are very poor in handling the pressure.
In our country we have abundant talents and skills. It is up to our cricket board to put things right and raise the standard of cricket. If men in authority execute their duties efficiently and honestly Sri Lanka will rise to very high standards. But if they are lethargic and indifferent we will never improve. Then there will be no consistency of performance of our national cricket players. They only show their class in fits and starts.
Rev. Bro. Nimal
Gurusinghe
De Le Salle Brothers
Colombo 15 |
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