Caught on a sticky wicket, Ranil’s glorious chance to emerge a shining knight  

by Rex Clementine 

There are a lot of similarities between Sir Don Bradman and Ranil Wickremesinghe. Both men were immensely gifted. Breaking world records was child’s play for the finest batsman the world has seen, while the smartest politician the nation has seen is on the verge of equalling a world record after becoming the Prime Minister for the sixth time. The record is held by the former leader of the Christian Democratic Party, Giulio Andreotti, who was Italy’s Prime Minister on seven occasions.

Despite all his cricketing brilliance, Bradman was a very vindictive person. The dropping of Keith Miller in 1949 was inexplicable and can be put down to the fact that Bradman had an axe to grind with the greatest all-rounder at that time. Then, there’s also the case of Clarrie Grimmett, Australia’s best leg-spin bowler before World War II. He took 44 wickets in a five-match series in South Africa in 1936 but never played a Test again purely because he had a run-in with Bradman.

Ranil’s case is similar. He may not have had fallouts with party seniors, but he sidelined them fearing a challenge to leadership. Sirisena Cooray, Gamini Jayawickrama Perera and Karu Jayasuriya are cases in point. When the Presidential elections came around with his chances of winning slim, Ranil was more than happy to back an independent candidate rather than supporting someone from within the party for fear of losing the party leadership.

When G.R. Viswanath entered the scene in 1969, the Indian captain at the time, Tiger Pataudi, was quick to realize that this was a precious talent and moved down the batting order to allow the youngster to occupy the premium number four position. India benefited immensely as they never lost a Test match when Viswanath made a hundred. Ranil was never comfortable with such grooming strategies. As a result, the UNP has suffered immense setbacks.

Some are poking fun at our political system, given that Ranil had lost the last Parliamentary elections in an embarrassing fashion. He entered Parliament through the National List and today lives in Temple Trees!

At MCG, a drunk Aussie fan once asked Percy: Is it true that like monkeys, you Sri Lankans live on trees? Uncle Percy replied, ‘Yes, even our Prime Minister lives in Temple Trees!’

For the moment, people will not mind whether the democratic process had been followed or not in selecting Ranil as the PM as there are far worse concerns. Long queues in the quest for essentials and the skyrocketing cost of living loom as the greatest among them. Remember, when the Ashes was slipping away from England in 1981, Alec Bedser didn’t choose the team’s best player to rescue England. Instead, he picked Mike Brearley, one of the best brains in the game. For the record, Brearley never made a hundred in a Test match although he featured in 39 of them.

Like Brearley, Ranil could save our economy.

Brearley wasn’t the only captain cricket’s selectors had thrown into the deep end when faced with a crisis. Having lost the cream of players to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket in 1977, Australia’s selectors called up Bobby Simpson, who was retired for a decade then, to take up the leadership at the age of 41! Ranil, at the age of 73, is the oldest UNP Prime Minister, older than D.B. Wijetunga.

Now that Ranil has been entrusted with an unenviable task, he better deliver or suffer the fate of Geoff Boycott. England were eyeing a Test win in Christchurch in 1977 but captain Boycott was not helping the team’s cause as he was batting too slow. Ian Botham ran out his skipper and England went on to win. Unless Ranil delivers, and fast, it’s only a matter of time before he too is left stranded. In Boycott’s team, there were many captaincy aspirants like Graham Gooch, Bob Willis, Derek Randall, Bob Taylor and Botham himself. We have plenty in our ranks with Prime Ministerial ambitions like Sirisena, Senaratne, Siripala, Premadasa, Ranawaka, et al.

In previous instances when Ranil took on the baton, he gave up the fight rather meekly after impressive starts.

Mahela Jayawardene, hailed as one of the greatest captains the nation has produced, had a golden opportunity to beat Pakistan 2-0 in a series in 2012 but preferred to settle for a 1-0 win. Instead of going all guns blazing, MJ opted for a handshake, playing it safe in Pallekele where Sri Lanka had the game in hand. Similarly, Ranil took over in 2001 with the economy in dire straits. Having fixed some of the problems the country was facing, he was making significant progress when President CBK clipped his wings by taking over three key ministries. Instead of fighting tooth and nail, Ranil like Mahela took the blow on the chin and merely looked on. The rest, as they say, is history.

A captain needs to have the support of his team. You pity Andrew Strauss, who faced the embarrassment of his own teammate Kevin Pietersen passing on tips to South African fast bowlers by sending text messages in Afrikaans. The South Africa-born Pietersen was a sensation as a batsman but could be a loose cannon if not handled carefully, very much like S.B. Dissanayake. When Ranil appointed Dissanayake as the National Organizer of UNP, eyebrows were raised as SB was a die-hard SLFPer. He was just marking time in UNP, passing on valuable information to the opposition, and made a timely defection. Like Strauss, Ranil suffered in silence. No one else was to be blamed but himself.

Once in power, Ranil tends to develop a close-knit circle full of Royalists who are not much aware of the ground reality. That was also Sanga’s problem. Not that he was pulling for any Trinitians, but he had another weakness, heavily backing players from Perera Gardens. Allegations that the 2011 World Cup final was fixed is a cock and bull story. However, some players in that squad didn’t deserve to be there. Sanga’s agent had a significant say in team selections, very much like Ranil’s loyal Royalists had on the economy. Sanga’s agent and Ranil’s Royalists are a recipe for disaster.

Richie Benaud said that captaincy was the ability to think ahead of the play and not keep responding to what takes place. Ranil has this in abundance as he predicted the economic crisis months in advance. Had he been in power, we could have probably avoided the crisis as well. However, his problem is that like Brian Lara, he is snobbish and his inability to engage lesser mortals becomes a problem.

To his credit, when he was in power, Ranil did try to clean up cricket. Sidath Wettimuny was one of the best Presidents we have had at SLC in many years. Ranil gave his fullest backing when Sidath tried to change the SLC constitution with the backing of the ICC. Alas! Maithripala’s camp comprised those who had interests in cricket as well and they crushed those plans.

Now that Ranil is back, there’s new found hope for both the economy and cricket. He needs to rescue both.