U-19 Cricket: Royal owns up to playing unregistered player, loses points

Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association (SLSCA) has decided to forfeit match points earned by Royal College Colombo of two games during the ongoing Under-19 Division I Cricket season after it was unearthed that an unregistered player has been a part of the team's playing XI. 

The discovery, interestingly, has been made by Royal College, who had understood that an error had occurred from their end, and officially informed the SLSCA of their own negligence for proper assistance and action.

The SLSCA in return had held an inquiry on February 6 at its head office at the Sri Lanka Cricket premises in Maitland Place and had informed Royal College cricket officials to withdraw the player from their list as his name does not come within the 30 registered players list of the school. 

In addition the SLSCA has informed Royal that it would lose match points of two games where the unregistered player has been a part of. 

The player, who is still a junior from the Under-15 set-up, is a spin bowler and had impressed the Royal coaching staff where he ended up playing three First XI matches. 

Accordingly the SLSCA will not grant points for Royal in their games against St. Benedict's College and St. Joseph's College. 

But the said player has also appeared for Royal in their First XI game against St. Anthony's College Katugastota, but the Secretary of SLSCA, Kapila Jayalath revealed to the Sunday Times that it will not affect the team in any way.

"There are 36 teams playing in the Division I of the Singer Schools Tournament in four groups. Each team will get to play eight tournament matches and in addition the SLSCA will count five more matches nominated by each schools to a total count 13 games during a season. Any team has the liberty to more or less matches. Royal's match against St. Benedict's comes as a group match from the tournament and their encounter against St. Joseph's was one of the five nominated by Royal. For those two games the SLSCA will act accordingly as the said player is not a part of the 30 registered list of Royal for the 13 games. But the match against St. Anthony's Katugastota is a traditional or friendly encounter out of the list, which we do not count and give the team the liberty to field any playing XI they wish to, including 'Big Matches'," Jayalath explained.

Top cricket-playing schools engage in a maximum of 20 or above matches during a season fulfilling their traditional fixtures and a compulsory commitment of eight tournament matches. 

Some of these schools have a strong tradition and structure for cricket, where team officials are forced to strictly follow a comprehensive scrutinizing process to pick 30 players for registration with the SLSCA. 

Suranga Wijenayake, the Head Coach of Royal College and a well seasoned cricketing figure with experience of coaching some top schools, stated that the situation where his team was in during the past few weeks was something that all school cricket teams face on a regular basis.  

"We accept that Royal had done a mistake at this point and the matter was brought up to the school authorities and the Cricket Committee before forwarding to the SLSCA. Royal is certainly a school following guidelines and norms of the school cricket authorities and there had been a miscommunication on this matter. But it's also an accepted fact that schools always are eager to feature youngsters from the junior category on merit. For that purpose the SLSCA authorities should be a bit more flexible by letting schools add at least five to ten players when the season is ongoing. I say this because it's a situation I have faced as a coach even in the past with other school teams," Wijenayake stated.

SLSCA Secretary Jayalath, further explained matters stating that there are avenues where a team could address this type of situations but within the slot of 30 players. 

Unlike Wijenayake's appeal, to let include five to ten players while the season is on, Jayalath pointed out that the SLSCA has given a school a list of 30, which he considers far more than enough for a pool during a season, and could keep a few slots open to register when the tournament is on.

"The SLSCA decided to limit the registration list of players to 30 per school purely because of legitimacy. We will have ample time to verify and notify the schools if there are any issues thereupon. A team could always register less than 30 players and keep a few slots open to add new players, but that too has to be completed before the end of the second round. In my view the SLSCA has acted in a reasonable manner on this. But on this issue we respect Royal College for their transparency, they were very helpful, modest and were highly corporative," he added.

At the same time schools also face another debacle when some teams suddenly lose players due to personal or academic commitments. 

Some less privileged schools find it hard even to find 30 players and some lose from five to ten players soon after registration at the conclusion of the third season. 

With rules and regulations strictly set to follow, schools tend to register the list of 30 players before the commencement of the season during July and August, before the third term. 

The SLSCA however does not possess any practice of treating to appeals in the past.

"That's an area where we have not even touched. Had we any appeal in the past related to player registrations, such as replacing one for another or something close to it, the SLSCA should gather an Executive Committee Meeting to discuss matters. But such incidents never took place in the past or during the recent years. It's an area we must seriously look into," Jayalath disclosed.

Names of two other schools at the ongoing Under-19 Division I, have emerged for playing unregistered players but according to Jayalath, the SLSCA has not received any complaints or protests so far.