If there are any players who say they don’t want to represent Sri Lanka in Pakistan at the upcoming series, by all means tell them to step aside so that players who don’t get a chance to be part of the team can be selected.
Let’s not practice hypocrisy. There are Sri Lankans who practice hypocrisy, but let’s not do it in sports.
When jihadists massacred and bombed almost 300 people in Sri Lanka, we were worried and all our sympathies go out to the victims and the survivors and their families. But New Zealand came here and thousands patronized the series and before that the Pakistan Under-19 team came here after the Easter Sunday carnage.
The hypocrisy is that we want other teams to come here, but do not want to go to a country, in this case Pakistan, that has the same security problem despite VIP assurances given. Eight other countries have sent their teams to contest an on-going Under-19 Asia Cup in Colombo. So it’s good for us to get teams to come here and bad for us to go to another country.
It is hoped that the tour will go ahead and the players who are “afraid” to go will be kept out and some brave ones taken in. The Sri Lanka team is no one’s private property.
The problem with Sri Lanka is its Culture. We are too closed-door and emotional a people. Those who are not in this category like Minister Harin Fernando should stand up. Hats off to him, he leads from the front.
Vajira Peiris
Nugegoda