Poisoned chalice, sour grapes or being around at the wrong time, ex-Sri Lanka cricket captain and one-time World Cup heart-throb Arjuna Ranatunga warned school cricketers of the evils of focusing on money while drawing a contrast to his own success without a cent in his pocket.
He fired the warning shots and made the alarm-sounding remarks amid pin-drop silence at the Sunday Observer-SLT Mobitel School Cricket Awards and received a touching applause from hundreds of schoolboys and girls all aspiring to sport the Sri Lankan emblem on the cricket field.
For a former player who boasts he never earned a cent from businessmen who ride on cricket, Ranatunga initially aroused curiosity with his black costume and silver-haired daddy appearance since hanging up his bat 21 years ago but whose remarks still stop a nation and turn heads.
While noting that a third force in the form of T20 cricket has taken over the sport, he singled out the Sri Lankan (LPL) and Indian (IPL) domestic leagues that could put budding players on the road to ruination.
“Today cricket has come under the influence of money and if your target is playing cricket for money and a place in the LPL, IPL or whatever PL, then it is better for you to go home and plough the land.
“Cricket is a sporting technique. I am not a fan of T20 cricket. It is just entertainment,” said Ranatunga as many of the boys and girls in the audience saw him for the first time in the flesh.
There was some laughter among the adult audience when the once roly-poly batsman said he was amused to hear a commentator at the on-going Sri Lanka LPL say that a gulp-down from an ‘energy drink’ made a particular batsman clout a six.
Himself a pioneer six-hitting Test batter before the likes of Sanath Jayasuriya took the art to a different level, Ranatunga revealed he turned his back on the biggest kill by way of a whopping offer to market a bottled product after the 1996 World Cup triumph as advertising was not his cup of tea and more over he felt the drink was harmful to school goers.
Schoolboys from far and wide as Jaffna and Batticaloa sat tight in their seats as they heard Ranatunga recall how he was looked at as a street kid when he enrolled as a member of the elite Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) that he batted for until the day he hung up his bat.
Given the composition that made up his listening audience at the BMICH in Colombo, there was no way Ranatunga could have avoided a shot at the manner in which the so-called guardians and mentors of school cricketers ply their trade.
“I am sorry to say this, but it causes heartburn to me to know that today’s school coaches don’t mould players or teams. Their main focus is on how to get their contracts extended year after year,” declared Ranatunga.
“We did not win the World Cup in a day. It took years of preparation and focus and there were the senior players before us who played their part to create the pathway for us to win.”
He warned of a total collapse sooner rather than later if a remedy is not put in place and appealed to heads of schools to stop the downward slide.
“Let’s go back to the past to face the future and this can be changed at school level. You boys and girls make note of this.
“You are going to be the future to take this sport forward and bear in mind that only hard-work, playing cricket for national pride with a strong mind set and commitment can take you to where I ended up.
“Otherwise, I would not have been standing here and addressing you,” said Ranatunga.
He took a few pot-shots at the parental administration at Sri Lanka Cricket calling it a place that never changes while everything else does and told the teenage aspirants not to be discouraged if they don’t end up as anyone’s favourite because they went to the wrong school or played for the wrong club.
“In the past six years there have been eight captains and six team-selection committees, but the same old faces continue in administration,” said Ranatunga who perhaps went down the wrong road in retirement preferring national politics to that of a coach that could have made him a world influence.