Cricket’s stakeholders need to act now

by Rex Clementine

Dr. N.M. Perera, a former Finance Minister and a former President of the cricket board, had warned about the dangers of Executive Presidency in late 1970s. Too much power or influence ending up at one individual’s disposal is dangerous in any sphere of life.

Whenever our cricket had faced challenging times, we had taken some extreme measures. Like in 2017 when we wanted to hire a new Head Coach, we changed the constitution in such a way that the Head Coach could be part of the selection panel. That proved to be disastrous and two years down the line we rectified the mistake.

Even at present, there is too much power at the disposal of one coach.

A system where we take collective decisions and persevere with them is far more ideal than one individual calling the shots.

The Cricket Committee at one point included some of the finest brains of our game. Sadly, most former captains are reluctant to join the Cricket Committee these days for they feel being undermined. At the end of the day, Cricket Committee is only an advisory committee to the Executive Committee and some former captains feel their inputs not valued as the veto power is with the Executive Committee. Let our brightest brains join the decision-making process.

It is paramount that we get a competent coaching staff to look after our cricket. In India, the coaching staff is picked by a committee that comprises Sachin Tendulkar, V.V.S. Laxman and Sourav Ganguly. Who is choosing the coaching staff in our neck of the woods? Your guess is as good as mine.

Our World Cup campaign is going from bad to worse and everyday we hit new lows. It is painful and heartbreaking to watch. On Monday, Sri Lanka had the Aussies under the pump having reached 125 for no loss. We were looking at a total in excess of 300 and game over for the Aussies. But then there was a dramatic collapse and we were shot out for 209 with more than six overs to spare. No surprise anymore. We have seen them too often these days.

Our selection has been flawed. We desperately want to fix the middle order woes, but we aren’t carrying an extra middle order batter.

Dhananjaya de Silva is an outstanding cricketer, but he is not your best finisher and number six is not his position. Since the selectors avoid the names like Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal like the plague, they could have looked at other options like Nuwanindu Fernando, Ashen Bandar, Kamindu Mendis and Sahan Arachchige. But they chose not to.

Our over reliance on all-rounders, in Sanjay Manjrekar’s words, ‘bits and pieces cricketers’ had backfired before. But we did not learn. We wanted to replace Dasun Shanaka. Who is taking his place? Chamika Karunaratne. How many overs did he send down against Australia in Lucknow? Is he a proper batsman who can repair the innings when there is a collapse. No. We are far better off playing a bowler than depending on the extra all-rounder.

Prior to the start of the current tournament, ten Sri Lankans had scored hundreds in World Cups. Avishka Fernando was one of them. But he is not in the current World Cup squad. We are told that he was overlooked as there were fitness issues with him. His skin folds were apparently high. Good enough reason to leave him out. But then, how come you picked Maheesh Theekshana and Lahiru Kumara, whose skinfolds too are high. Surely, there can’t be two sets of rules for players. And for three years you tolerated Bhanuka Rajapaksa when his skinfolds were always high.

We have got to do something urgently to ensure that our domestic cricket is up to scratch and the only way we are going to do that is by cutting down the number of First-Class teams involved in competitions. If your domestic cricket is diluted and lacks competition, then you are going to struggle internationally.

Our selectors are picking squads based on players’ performances on bad wickets but when they go for international events, they are well and truly exposed as there is nowhere to hide on flat decks.

Another area that we need to address is our High-Performance Center. Ours must be the only High-Performance Center in the world that has neither an indoor net facility nor a swimming pool. Bangladesh took the blueprint from us for a High-Performance Center and they have these facilities all over the country nowadays. We were busy putting up new cricket facilities in Maithripala Sirisena’s electorate and Dayasiri Jayasekara’s electorate. Of course, Sooriyawewa is not the only white elephant in our cricket.

There seems to be too many egos in cricket adamant that their viewpoint is right and not willing to listen to anyone else. With that kind of attitude, we are heading for disaster. Last World Cup in England was a wakeup call. We didn’t act fast enough and were forced to play the qualifiers. This World Cup is scary. We are paying the price for being petty minded and not addressing vital issues.