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Cricket can be challenging and at the same time it can be very demanding. It is a collective sport where you need a team of eleven players plus a whole plethora of other expertise to fulfill one goal – a positive result.
Beyond the boundary line you find the main actor whom we call the captain and his co-actors – the players. In a match, 22 players get on stage and enact a drama in real life, but at the same time there is a host of others who busy themselves to see to that every line and every eye movement is carried out according to a plan.
In reality it is the behind-the-scene people who are the real authors of the story. It is they who shape the present team as well as carry out the policies that the authorities formulate to make that particular team play better cricket and bring more accolades. Among them, coaching takes the pride of place.
Jayaratne explaining about the new set of side wickets that are coming up at the Cricket Development Centre that is situated at the R. Premadasa Cricket Complex. Picture by Sanka Vidanagama |
Now that the Lankans are performing akin to any other stalwart in the fray we wanted to delve into the system and see how the coaching aspect is progressing and whether Sri Lanka are preparing themselves to take the game at the present levels beyond 2011.
To take us through the stages, we chose Jerome Jayaratne, the head of coaching, Sri Lanka Cricket, to take us through.
Jayaratne who has been with the cricket system in Sri Lanka at the highest level for more than a decade is in charge of the coaching aspect is a man who understands the most intricate part of the job and the requirement of a village lad to develop his cricket talent.
Jayaratne explained that initially it was the top lot of National cricketers who were pampered by the system. Gradually he and his team learned that turning professional with a professional back-up system was the key to success. “Originally the Cricket Board had contracted about twenty five players from the national squad and the ‘A’ team. But, we in our investigations found out that some of the players did not have the time to fully concentrate on the game because of their employment constraints.
 They found employment because of their financial and social needs, but, if they could not keep to our schedules it became a problem. That retarded the development of the player. “For instance if you are Muttiah Muralitharan you will have Mr. X as your spin bowling coach, there will be a fulltime physiotherapist and a trainer assigned to you besides the fielding coach and others that come in the fray. Over them, there will be the team coach who is Trevor Bayliss. This means a fully contracted player will have a four or five full time personnel assigned to look after him. They are responsible for all aspects of that individual player’s performance. They have to keep the player match fit at all times.”
The Head of Coaching said the old system could not go on with a background of that nature. So the Coaching Department of Sri Lanka Cricket studied the systems in Australia and England and made some recommendations that suited our system. Accordingly, the management decided to increase the contracted player number to 78. This included the National Squad, the ‘A’ team, the Development squad, the Academy and some T20 specialists.
“At that point, the management addressed the players and gave them an option. The contracts that were on offer ranged from Rs. 40,000 a month to Rs. 100,000 a month for the lower rungs while the members of the ‘A’ team and the National Team were offered dollar contracts,” Jayaratne said.
According to him, the results were almost instantaneous. This move saw some junior players like Dinesh Chandimal, Tissara Perera and Lahiru Thirimanne working hard and overtaking some of the national fringe players and going up to the level of knocking at the national door. This came in as a result of the system offering the players to go fulltime professional or getting fulltime reprieve from their employers when the cricket needs arose.
With the system placed in order, the benefactor was national cricket.
“Now you can see individual players in the system coming over here and making use of the facilities available and batting or bowling with the help of the available coaches for hours on end. This resulted in the younger set of players taking advantage and progressing rapidly. At that time even we did not know the benefits of it, but, now we know, taking stock of the younger players who have moved up the ranks in the recent past,” he said.
Jayaratne added that with this opening, the younger players enhanced their knowledge and technical aspects of the game. This meant that they were better equipped players than the ones we produced in the past.Another encouraging factor that Jayaratne saw was the increased number of Junior-level exchanges that the non-national level cricketers have been engaged in of late.
Jayaratne said that these exchanges enabled our young cricketers to understand players around the globe and taking on any opposition at any level was not a problem to them. For instance, he said that players in the calibre of Thirimanne, Chandimal etc have scored centuries against senior teams on a regular basis. This means that the national larder now always has quality players who could replace experienced cricketers, even if they are big names.
“I feel the cricket at present is on the right track where the future is concerned because a lot of focus has been put on the development of the younger brood along with senior cricketers.
I also see a lot could be done with the proper introduction of the provincial system and I see that aspect opening more opportunities to develop the level of our domestic structure if we could get our thoughts together and plan it out well”.
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