Women’s cricket — Pressing problems and panacea
Apsari Tilakaratne (right) had contributed immensely for the growth of women's cricket in Sri Lanka - File Pic
The status of Sri Lanka’s men’s team has flighted and flourished, leave aside their performance. But how about the status of the nation’s women’s team? Is it only hardly noticed and grabs the attention only whenever an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence is recorded?
Even for these to happen, that is, the status of women’s cricket becoming half of their men’s level, Apsari Tilakaratne, convenor of women’s cricket but above all, doing a significant, substantial and a stellar service virtually single handedly, pointed out a few factors holding back the progress of the game for the girls too.
Cultural issues and especially when it comes to rural cricket, parents don’t know the value of the game and they have to educate them. Though it’s in the media, sometimes, when they visit schools’ parents and their children don’t know whether we have a national women’s team. That and ranging up to poverty.
Given the plight and the pathetic sight, Apsari, has been literally and frequently going out-of-her-way to clear their (the parents’) mind on their worries, fears and convince them to send the girls to join the game. Due to the parental problem, Apsari had to eventually set out to nooks and corners of the country to persuade the parents as primary; and for talent-tapping as secondary. This is, as coaches were not successful in driving the devil, and that had demanded the woman warrior in Apsari to take over that job, too. A woman dealing with women has so far given returns as the fear and worry for the safety is gradually being eliminated.
It’s a bit of a give-and-take policy, to start with. Apsari has to prove the initial part of showing them it’s all safe-and-secure under her or even coming to Colombo from outstation. These girls come for various cricketing commitments, ranging from training, selections and even tournaments. Apsari, then acts as their mother away from home, personally providing safety and looks after them.
“The response and results were immediate. Those efforts then brought out the interest, eagerness and enthusiasm and it’s a lot,” Apsari, also the wife of Hashan, coincidentally the women’s head coach, said of the hard-earned results.
Apsari and co.’s. arduous task, along with the ground-level representatives she has in provincial and district levels are answered, when the message is carried to the villages and their homes. This time, it’s a great green light from the parent’s side too, that there are no barriers and obstacles.
Three-days prior to speaking to the Sunday Times last week, she had visited Mahiyangana and Siyambalanduwa, two of the many outstation points she considers a talent hub, and continued her practise of meeting the parents also in-person. It is here, she revealed an alarming fact on Colombo, that the cricketing finds the capital produces is steadily declining, and unlike the concrete jungle, outstation is where the players continue to come.
“Only in the rarest of cases, a Colombo girl is convinced of taking up the sport. Or else, and always, parents insist them on studying and progress through that pathway”.
“But in the case of outstation girls, if they’re told exactly the benefits, the way forward and if the girl is talented, the parent will ‘surely’ send them. This is in stark contrast to the Colombo examples”.
During a project recently, picking girls for a developmental squad, they had selected a score of girls. They were expecting the vast majority to be from Galle and Colombo, whereas, breaking the expectation they had found a lot from – Kegalle, Monaragala, Nuwara-Eliya, Badulla and even from Jaffna (two) and one from Trincomalee.
Throughout the history of any Lankan women’s team, there has been a dearth of North-East representation. But breaking that drought for the first time, Apsari’s rigorous quest to find girls gave a big return.
“Yes, I’ve visited all five districts in the North. And, we have two Jaffna girls from the development squad this time. The three finds from the two cities (Jaffna and Trinco) is a big achievement,” she said, adding that her personally visiting and talking had paved the way for this trendsetter.
Panacea
Simply because Colombo has not been showing results and falling back in results, they have not given up either. It’s only that outstation has been showing great signs for sustainability. Some girls tend to play until school level and then drop it. But if they can be enlightened, there’s a long-way to go.
Particularly, Apsari revealed, if they are taught the pride and patriotism of representing the country, those words work wonders.
Responding to why the men’s game has gone the distance, but there is a stumbling block with the women’s, she threw the ball to the media’s court urging and calling for more discussions to be done by members of the media on the women’s version.
“Men’s game is cemented steadily amongst all and sundry. But for the women’s game to find it’s footing, more talking will make it cynosure of all eyes. We’ve to talk more about women’s cricket. We’ve to emphasise on the improved facilities, and say standards have shot up to professional level,”
“We are now hoping to revive the tournament. We could not play the district and provincial tournaments, where we see the talent of the youngster’s. We were told we could resume that tournament, this year in March-April. I’m just looking forward to that. We’ve promoted the sport among school and up to a level. We are waiting to see the talent and treating it step-by-step,” she said of her plans for this year.
“My promotional plans will continue. I’ll be visiting schools and that programme will continue uninterruptedly,” she added.
The women’s team had a contrasting year-end and opening to the new year. Late last year, a big blow struck them as a bolt from the blues, when their world cup dream’s this year were snatched away.
However, as consolation and in compensation, the ladies early this week, qualified for the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Birmingham come July.
Former captain Shashikala Siriwardena, speaking on her goals to the girls in this new year said, “We lost out on our slot for the next world cup. However, since the International Cricket Council (ICC) has amended it to ten teams, in the three-years we will be getting match exposure with the top sides. Our focus should be banking on those matches to climb up the rankings during the next three years, while treating the missed world cup as past,”
The crucial part she continued was, remaining in touch by playing games. Without being over reliant on the fixtures and tours organised by the ICC, the board also should into that and arrange as many matches as possible. Hence, those two should be facilitated concurrently. The players are also doing their part of remaining dedicated, training hard and practicing. Thus, they are in need of matches, to bring out the improvement.
In the post-Siriwardena era, only Chamari Atapattu, the captain of the team, is going places. Atapattu delivered the goods in style rightly being adjudged as Player-of-the-series at the qualifiers. She led from the front as an example finishing the qualifiers with 221-runs and four wickets.
Most of the others, however, find themselves stagnated in that – below-average – zone and even disparity levels are exposed between the leader and her pack.
Stalwart Siriwardena explaining on how this should be bridged laid out, “One thing I have spotted is only, skills-wise the girls are greatly placed. Courtesy to the school cricket structure, we continue to discover talent than before and so are numbers taking to the game. That is also creating healthy competition in the country”.
Nevertheless, Siriwardena lamented the administrative lapse of inadequate matches, locally and globally. In retrospect the last few years, the ladies have played only minimal matches compared with the other teams.
“What I have mostly thought to myself is, for others to play along with the skilled and experienced, there are insufficient domestic tournaments. Even for the girls only with school level appearances to self-assess them, they straightaway arrive at the international level,”
She concluded, a newcomer should have played 10-15 games along with the captain to understand the structure. Only then, they can develop and eventually deliver when taking on the world.