Sports

Sports

CRICKET - SINE QUA NON
By S. R. Pathiravithana
There is a strange feeling that there is something wrong somewhere. In the morning the skies are gray and by evening it’s raining and mind you all this is happening in the month of January. At the same time there is another ominous looking development in the higher echelons of the Maitland Place cricket auditorium. With all that what we can see is that a plot that was being hatched has gone radically wrong and now they are in search of answers to this latest version of the “Hathara Beeri Kathawa” or to put it in English the conversation that took place between four deaf persons.

The story began on Wednesday with a newspaper story that there has been changes effected in the Sri Lanka Cricket Selection Committee with two more names added. Coming in was former Sri Lanka medium pace bowler and selection committee chairman Asantha de Mel who is known for his forthright comments and a man who was removed as soon as the incumbent committee came into effect, coming back as chairman. Along with de Mel’s was another name. This was a name that did not ring any bells in the cricketing circles. The second man was the newly appointed treasurer of the interim committee – Sujeewa Rajapakse who is a close confidant of the IC president Jayantha Dharmadasa.

Meanwhile the hornets were out of the nest. They were swarming all over the city of Colombo and its environs. The most bothered was de Mel. Call upon call came from the press. He said that the Interim Committee did approach him and he had said that if he was to come and rejoin and he would come back only on his own conditions which means that he wanted four other past Test cricketers replace the present committee. At the same time the minister on his part said that he was oblivious of any story of this nature while the president of the Interim Committee pooh-poohed the issue.

In another development on Friday morning The Sunday Times was contacted by the Interim Committee and was given their official version. It said “As far as the Interim Committee is concerned no changes have taken place to the cricket selection committee. The selection committee comprise Lalith Kaluperuma(Chairman) along with Don Anurasiri, Shabir Asgerally and K.M. Nelson serving as members.

This is the reconstruction of the drama of a story which was never there or else was it there? Did the real story go this way?

Asantha de Mel who was removed from the selection committee chairmanship after the present IC took over the reins becomes a very vocal critic of the present cricket administration and the selection committee and holds them responsible for the debacles that Sri Lanka cricket is facing at present. At the same at the hallowed halls of Maitland Place, the IC too is looking for some avenue to divert the flow of criticism and also find the fall guy. Then their attention focuses on de Mel’s criticism and then takes a decision to call him back to take over the burden of the problem-riddled Selection Committee. De Mel accepts and in turn the IC contacts the minister and tells him about the latest development. The minister in turn asks if this move could be a cure for all the ills of the IC, and gives them his blessings if they are confident about the move. All this was done without a single word getting on to a sheet of paper.

The following morning there is yet another development. A bright guy within the Interim Committee tries to go one up and leaks the story to the press and the rest becomes known history.

Going by the reconstructed version what can be said is – if a person makes a mistake he should be large-hearted enough to admit that he was wrong. At the same time when some one is offered a job and if you can not accept his demands do not give him the job. You have all the right to do so. Right at this moment there are more ills in Sri Lanka cricket and they are there in every nook and cranny of the sport which now has become almost a multi-million dollar industry.

Time is seemingly running out. At the top, replacements to the national squad are hard to come by. At the under-19 and lower levels Sri Lanka are losing to even Bangladesh at more than frequent intervals and club cricket also does not feed the national grid the way it should. The national team has dropped from the second to the sixth place in ODI rankings. At present what the local cricket administrators should be doing is to find the solutions to these ills that are plaguing this sport which took us to the pinnacle of fame a decade back.
Nobody believes in “hathara beeri kathawas” anymore.

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