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Sports

Hashan's playing days
By Hemantha Warnakulasuriya
Is your captain aggressive? Ian Botham asked this question from fellow Sri Lankan commentator Ranjith Fernando. Ranjith, arguably the most long lasting cricket commentator the country has produced, would hardly offend players, umpires or officials, particularly if they were foreign. Survival is the name of his trade. He mumbled some words that were deliberately made to be incoherent and pointless. Ian Botham asked this question when it became apparent the declaration was delayed.
The term aggressive was generally unknown to Sri Lankan players.

They had been instilled in the teaching of their alma- mater that cricket is a gentleman's game. Cricket, however, is not only a gentlemen's game but also that of the aristocrat. As the capitalist class withered away and the British Empire fell apart, cricket was taken over by the uncouth urban proletariat and begun to mouth four letter words mixed with racist remarks that entailed and cheating to an ignoble extent. With it came the aggressiveness that we now refer to. We are slow learners.

It was because we were uncouth that Englishmen taught us to be polite and kind and taught us the rules of the game, at one time. But soon the rowdy elements took over the games of football and cricket and from that played by gentlemen and went on to make millions in money. Thus when we still talk of cricket being a gentleman's game we are, perhaps to our detriment, far behind time.

It was Arjuna Ranatunga taught these players to cringe and tremble before him. Shane Warne and wicket- keeper, Ian Healy wrote about Ranatunga's such traits in their books on cricket. According to Shane Warne, the greatest disappointment in his cricketing life was losing the World Cup in 1966. We had then won the World Cup as a result of just this aggressive behaviour and methods generally employed in cricket, especially when we happen to play Australia.

We revolutionized the limited-over game with Sanath Jayasuirya and Romesh Kaluwitharana' aggressive play in the opening- overs of a match. with their scintillating knocks which were unprecedented in cricket. Arjuna's captaincy was something that most rowdies clothed in the garb of gentlemen could not stomach. He countered the four letter words with similar verbosity filled with uninhibited four letter words that made their point in no uncertain manner.

But both Arjuna and Aravinda made an irrevocable mistake in grooming Aravinda's schoolboy buddy, Hashan Thilakeratne, to be the Sri Lankan captain. Luckily Sidath Wettimuny entered the scene and appointed Sanath the captain. Sanath was an aggressive cricketer. Most teams could not even come close to his approach. His formidable style combined with a winning smile made him the most successful captain we have ever had. His success came to an end when his batting failed and he decided to leave the captaincy. With Aravinda De Silva in the Selection Committee, they decided to drop Atapattu who was never Aravinda's favourite, and appoint Hashan as the captain of the test team. It was a disaster.

Hashan was the biggest blocker in cricket. He could never ever place the ball between the fielders. It was a pain to see him batting. Even the loose ball he blocked and got out without making a contribution. He scored an occasional century to keep his place in the team. The first thing the Sports Minister has to do is to sack Aravinda from the Selection Committee.

How can Aravinda, being a Vice President, be at the same time a selector too? Thus the selectors should sack Hashan and give him a golden handshake and request him to retire from cricket. I do not think Hashan would ever declare an innings even when playing against a team like Bangladesh if they had even the slightest chance of victory. He is dead scared of loosing his captaincy and even his place in the team. He would do anything to play for a draw when there is still a winning situation. This is evident even when we play in conditions favourable to us though in foreign conditions we are bound to loose heavily due to such negative play.

The Australians learnt from us and improvised their own batting in the first fifteen overs. They threw conventions and other thinking out of the window and produced Gilchrist and others who emulated Sanath and Kalu and carried forward such tactics into the test arena. They changed the conventions, thinking and rules. Their method is to be aggressive in the limited over games and bat for only one innings and score over 500 runs and get the opposing side out twice.

Ricky Ponting was sad that he could not score more runs to take the total over 500 runs. Our captain delays declarations at points where there are huge chances of winning the matches by means of an early declaration. Hashan has absolutely no feeling for aggression and in the context where ruthlessness, aggression and all other tricks do count to win matches. It is my view that Hashan must leave the arena and let another player like Thilakeratne Dilshan take his place in the batting lineup in the Sri Lankan team.

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