With just three days left before their departure for a decisive tour of New Zealand, Sri Lanka’s cricketers were subjected to a mentally deranged scenario as their keepers in the Board and the supervisors in the Sports Ministry faced off in a shadowy shoot-out to see who is smarter on the draw.
The predicament of the players hung around for nearly a month after Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) hit a road block set up by the Sport’s Ministry’s policy-making National Sports Council (NSC) that wanted to shoot down an old set of player Selectors so a new group could call the shots to their liking.
In the backdrop of the behind-the-scene stand-off the players were packed away for a week’s pre-tour preparation in central Radella where conditions are said to be similar to New Zealand.
But on their return to Colombo the players learnt that their scheduled flight plans could be put on hold as the Sports Ministry had until last Friday not approved their passages, the result of bickering.
Last week onetime Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya who is now a Selector of Selectors in the NSA that is headed by his former captain Arjuna Ranatunga, told the Sunday Observer that they were awaiting more names for a new Selection Panel thereby apparently disregarding the squad picked to tour New Zealand.
The situation prompted an SLC official to tell the Sunday Observer that the tour party could even miss their scheduled flight if the matter went into further extremes.
“Imagine the mindset of the players and the mental agony created,” he said.
But the bigger question is who will take responsibility, the Selectors or the NSC, should New Zealand regroup after a hard time in their ongoing Test series against England and comeback to thrash Sri Lanka in the subsequent series that starts on March 9
Current head selector Pramodya Wickremasinghe who is not seeing eye-to-eye with the NSC was too busy to come to the phone to defend or justify his wisdom in player selections or their current mindset.
Should uncapped batsman Nishan Madushka make his Test debut he will be the most talked about after being declared the player of the series in his recent appearances against England Lions for the Sri Lanka A team that justified his prowess in slamming over a 1000 runs in the domestic club season last year that included five centuries and a career-best 300.