Remember 1996? That great year when a cricket team led by Arjuna Ranatunga took the world by storm and brought the cricket World Cup home on a sultry night in Lahore? Well, just as much as we boast about our culture and heritage of 2,500 years and are content to rest on those laurels while other nations surpass us, it looks like, this is all we have got to talk about now in cricket, as Sri Lanka is on a race towards the bottom of the pile among international teams. Thrashed across all formats in India, some false hope lingered when it won two test matches against Pakistan in the Emirates but normal service was soon restored in the one-dayers that followed. Right now, the country doesn’t even probably deserve to compete at the highest level, though it has been allowed to.
Whose fault is it? Those in the know point the finger at the administration at Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), led by the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Thilanga Sumathipala. Like a bad dream, just when you think you have got rid of him, Sumathipala keeps returning to run the game’s controlling body. He has doubled the number of teams in the domestic competition, bringing in more clubs that in turn vote for him and elect him as President of SLC! As a result, the quality of the domestic game is diluted, producing cricketers of poor quality. Add to this, constant interference in team selections and the hiring and firing of coaches and managers- and we have a recipe for disaster. SLC has chopped and changed coaches of the national cricket team as frequently as Sumathipala changes loyalties in politics. Few remember that he once supported the United National Party. Then his loyalties shifted to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and Mahinda Rajapaksa. Few also remember that he supported Rajapaksa at the last presidential election- against Maithripala Sirisena. In an indication of how astute the man is, after failing to gain entry to Parliament because he lacked sufficient preference votes, Sumathipala was given a ‘free pass’ by President Sirisena and accommodated on the National List and then honoured with the Deputy Speaker’s position! If the main political camps in the country find him indispensable, he also tries to make himself indispensable to running cricket in the country. This is his fourth ‘innings’ as President of SLC and, as it happens in cricket, his performance in the fourth innings has been the worst. Yet, even Presidents have not been able to tame him: he beat Chandrika Kumaratunga’s uncle, Clifford Ratwatte for the job when Kumaratunga was President. Those who love the game are tearing their hair in frustration as they see the standards of the game decline, but they are powerless to do anything about it. Just ask Arjuna Ranatunga.
The man who beat the entire world and brought home the World Cup didn’t stand a chance when he fielded a ‘team’ to run against Sumathipala’s camp at the last SLC elections. Recently, the Nugegoda District Court dismissed a claim for defamation made by Sumathipala against Ranatunga. In delivering its verdict, the court noted that “the petitioner (Sumathipala) accepted with great difficulty that a well-known race (betting) business by the name of Sporting Star was in operation all over Sri Lanka and that it was run under the name of U. W. Sumathipala and Sons and that ‘sons’ pertained to himself and his brother”. Now, rules of the International Cricket Council explicitly prohibit anyone related to betting to be involved in the game- but our man carries on, regardless.
The game is politicized to such an extent now that even players sometimes try to identify themselves with political camps to stay in the team. There was the infamous instance when two so-called ‘legends’ of the game used their political connections to skip games during a tour of England, so they could play in the cash- rich Indian Premier League (IPL). Then, there was a presidential order to include an ageing Sanath Jayasuriya in a team touring England at the ripe old age of 41! All these events have taken their toll. As a result, there is no discipline in the administration and in the structure of the game in the country- and now it seems, even among the players. Today, Sri Lanka will play in Lahore, the scene of their greatest triumph in the game. Yet, it is not the best team that is playing- it is a virtual ‘second eleven’. The players who would have otherwise donned blue and yellow Sri Lankan colours have chickened out- just because of a bomb attack in Pakistan eight years ago. Didn’t Sri Lanka play in England in the Champions Trophy, a week after the London Bridge terror attack? Where was the ‘fear factor’ then? And remember, this Pakistan, one of the few the countries which aided us when we were fighting terrorists and a country which sent their cricketers to play an exhibition game in Colombo when the West Indies and Australia forfeited their games in Sri Lanka during the 1996 World Cup citing security concerns. To be fair, SLC got this one right.
They told the players that if they play the T20 games, they should play in all of them- not just those in the Emirates. Still, the players refused, demonstrating that they are a bunch of lily-livered nincompoops who don’t have a backbone- both on and off the field! Shame on them because they should have known better. After all, Sumathipala and Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera are travelling with the team to Lahore- and you can bet any amount (perhaps with U. W. Sumathipala and Sons!) that they wouldn’t have done that if they felt it was unsafe.
This is especially so for Dayasiri- who must have learnt that it was absolutely safe, otherwise he wouldn’t have departed because his motto, as we all know, is ‘Learn or Depart’ or ‘Disce Aut Discede’! So, as we said, as cricket in Sri Lanka stumbles from disaster to disaster, all we can do is reminisce the good old days of 1996. And, on that note, there was another interesting news item this week: Darrel Hair, the man who ‘no-balled’ Murali and claimed that his action was not ‘straight’ was found guilty of embezzlement and stealing nearly 10,000 dollars in an Australian court for stealing money from his current employer. At least now we know whose actions were not straight and whose arm was crooked, don’t we? Or, we can call it ‘karumey’!