Pressing the self destruction button

by Rex Clementine

The Cricket Committee chaired by former great Aravinda de Silva and comprising some of the finest brains to have played the game is one of the best things to have happened for the game in the last ten years. Methodically, they seem to be building up a structure which will make domestic cricket and the game at grass root levels stronger and it will help in the longer run. But there are also one or two areas they need to bring their expertise in and maybe put their foot down. They simply can not let amateurs handle key aspects of the sport.

You can understand the fact that the Cricket Committee does not want to interfere in selections but certain things they can not simply let go. At the moment, there is little clarity on some of the selections that are being done. Even K.M. Nelson, not the most popular cricket selector around, would have fared better.

Sri Lanka’s batting looked thin in England where they failed to bat out their 50 overs. Now that Kusal Janith Perera is out of the series, batting looks even thinner. There are just four front line batsmen for the 50 over format and it remains to be seen what’s the team’s strategy going to be to utilize their full quota of overs leave alone beating India. Against the likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal this is going to be a tough ask.

Some say that this is a second string Indian team and Sri Lanka should fare better but make no mistake. This is a well drilled side under Rahul Dravid, who is known for his meticulous planning. Having tasted success with India Under-19 team and the ‘A’ team, this is Dravid’s first international exposure and he would be wanting to prove his credentials that he is the right man to take over the senior side from Ravi Shastri.

Sri Lanka’s planning has to improve leaps and bounds. You can be assured that some schools that are playing cricket do much better planing than the national cricket team. Here’s why. With KJP on the mend, the indications were that he was going to miss out on the series. The authorities did not bother to include a wicketkeeper in the squad.

Eventually, Minod Bhanuka was pulled out from the Dambulla bubble and rushed to Colombo. But giving someone who has featured in just one ODI a mere 48 hours ahead of the game is poor planning. It is like asking Basil Rajapaksa to fix the economy in two months.

It was also strange that KJP had to be named in the squad and then we had to be told that that he is injured. Media reported that KJP will not be part of the series two days before the squad was announced.

The selectors seem to be not keen to pick the players who are on war path. So leaving out the likes of Angelo Mathews, Dimuth Karunaratne and all others is understandable. But then, should they have picked some of the players like Roshen Silva, Angelo Perera or Ashan Priyanjan. They had been already in a bubble and surely once KJP was out, at least one of them should have been retained.

The first ODI will get underway today at RPS. All games will be played at RPS. The T-20 will follow the ODIs.