Parents, guardians, educationists and even coaches are frowning on Sri Lanka Cricket’s decision to entice school goers as young as 13 years to play for money at the upcoming inter-school season.
With its administrative image battered and in tatters over corruption, Sri Lanka Cricket decided in a desperate move to turn child students into hardened pros that is also likely to have repercussions on grooming future players for the National team where-in money and not the basics and values in the sport creates a rumble in the jungle type situation.
“The Executive Committee of Sri Lanka Cricket headed by President Shammi Silva took several decisions for the advancement of the game in the country”, SLC said in a Media Statement.
But what was most alarming in the Press document was that it said schoolboys playing in the Under-15 category which can also accommodate 13 year olds will be entitled to payments that is likely to be on a scale that even their parents may not earn raising more questions on the roping in of kids to work which is tantamount to child labour.
“Sri Lanka Cricket decided to introduce an award scheme to recognize and compensate the junior cricketers who perform exceptionally well during the Sri Lanka school cricket tournaments.
“The recognition of these cricketers will commence from the U15 category to U17”, SLC’s Statement emphasized.
But junior coaches fear the apple cart has been up-set.
“This is outrageous. We will be teaching these kids to perform for money and not to learn even the basics of the game. It will now be about love for money and not the sport, like throwing some of them into the deep end”, said one of the many junior coaches who work for Sri Lanka Cricket and who wanted his identity kept under wraps for obvious reasons.
With money entering the country by the plane loads courtesy of cricket which has become one of the fastest growing and most profitable earning avenues in the country, the latest move, or gimmick to the critic, could create a nightmare for heads of schools.
It is likely to rekindle a remark of perception made by a former principal of Trinity College Andrew Fowler-Watt who pleaded to safeguard schoolboy sportsmen from the scourge of commercialization.
“Allow and let these schoolboys enjoy what they do and don’t force them into anything”, said Fowler-Watt in a general reference when he launched his school’s centenary match against St. Anthony’s College at a Colombo ceremony five years ago.
