| Sports |
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| Churning out fresh legs |
By S.R. Pathiravithana |
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| Thisara Perera – a cricketer who has been nurtured by the system from his early teens. (Pic Reuters) |
Sri Lanka Cricket Interim Committee Secretary Nishantha Ranatunga claimed that their policy of grooming new players had paid off during the island nation’s recent crisis where they faced a spate of injuries, but, yet managed to produce a set of young replacements who were willing to take up the challenges that true professional international circuit posed.
Ranatunga said that when they took over there were only thirty three contracted players with the SLC, but, soon they increased it to 76 contracted players which even included fifteen under 19 players who virtually are school cricketers.
Besides that they also provided the necessary infrastructure such as the necessary coaching and practice facilities. Ranatunga added “We even provided these young players with new Kookaburra balls while on training. Initially we found out that there was a huge gap between the experienced players in the Lankan regular international circuit and the budding players who were knocking at the door. Realizing this, we kept feeding the fresh legs with the best facilities so that their transformation from periphery players to true international performers materialized at the highest level.”
Explaining further was the National Head of Coaching Jerome Jayaratne. Jayaratne said, “just see what we could do with our injuries from the Indian tour. First at the beginning of the Indian tour Dilhara Fernando replaced Thilan Thushara, and then Muttiah Muralitharan was replaced by Muthumudalige Pushpakumara. When Lasith Malinga broke down we had Suranga Lakmal and Thisara Perera went to India for the injured Angelo Mathews.”Talking further on fresh legs Jayaratne said “Suraj Randiv was ready for the Indian ODIs and young Lahiru Thirimanne was picked for the Bangladesh tour when Mahela Jayawardena pulled out due to injury. In the last consignment taking wings were Mahela Udawatte, Mahela Jayawardena (after passing a fitness Test) along with Dinesh Chandimal. In short we had necessary replacements on short calls.”
Jayaratne further said during the past twelve months Thisara Perera, Lahiru Thirimanne, Suranga Lakmal, Suraj Randiv, Dinesh Chandimal, Pushpakumara Muthumudalige and Angelo Mathews have graduated to the top grid.
The former national fast bowler Jerome Jayaratne who also headed the SLC cricket academy at one stage explained their modus operand “In the past we had players who were employees of various mercantile firms, but the snag in that system was that they were on call to another master. So we derived this scheme of full time contracted professionals. Prior to launching this scheme we explained to the respective cricketers who were in various squads and gave them the option and mind you most of the employers who received the letters from the SLC readily released their cricketers with the promise of taking them back after their stint with the national squads. Now a cricketer from the National Academy receives a monthly emolument of Rs.40,000/-, Development Squad Player a sum of Rs 60,000/- while ‘A’ team and the National Squad players are on Dollar contracts.
“This type of contracts really does work. Some guys we have picked up come from very poor backgrounds and the boys do have to share the burdens with their parents to keep the home oil burning. But, now with them having a healthy monthly income they also help their families monetarily. So this step taken by the SLC has borne results in various ways”.
Jayaratne then added the system also picks out certain players at the age of fifteen or so. For instance he pointed out players like Thisara Perera, Lahiru Thirimanne and Dinesh Chandimal had been with the system from their early teens and by the time they reached the age of twenty they had travelled to so many countries and had interacted with so many foreign players their graduation to the national team came without many hic-cups.
In conclusion Jayaratne said that it is not only the players side that has been looked after, but the SLC have also upgraded the facilities of the coaches akin to international levels and provided each of them with a lap top so that they can keep up with the latest developments in the coaching arena and said “All this has come at a cost and I feel the effort is bearing positive results now”. |
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