Selling your skippers down the river

by Rex Clementine 

Last month, Kusal Janith Perera was made to look like a superstar. Sri Lanka’s selectors got him to captain the side, keep wickets, and open batting.  Not even the ice cool M.S. Dhoni had been saddled with that many responsibilities. 

This month, however, it has dawned onto the selectors that KJP is no superstar. Not only has he been sacked as the captain, he is also likely to be relieved of wicket-keeping duties. Don’t be surprised if they tell KJP to bat in the middle order during the ODIs. 

Every defeat needs a scapegoat. We found a good one in KJP. Selling your skipper down the river, however, is nothing new. It is an age-old practice that successive establishments have used to make ends meet or even teach people lessons. Politicians have a lot to learn from our cricket. 

We all know that Bandula Warnapura is not the mastermind of the rebel tour to South Africa. Those who plotted got away but Warnapura bore the brunt of it all. The commonly known fact is that he was banned for 25 years but there are lesser-known factors. For example, the second tour to South Africa that Dr. Ali Bacher had promised when he wooed the unsuspecting Sri Lankans never happened. That left the players high and dry. Warnapura had taken on a powerful government minister by taking the team to South Africa and he was made to suffer as the government made sure that his appeal for electricity was repeatedly turned down. 

Simply because being the nephew of Bandula, young Malintha suffered too as he couldn’t get a school admission. None wanted to associate with the name of Warnapura. 

Marvan Atapattu was an exemplary leader. He was destined to lead the team for a few years but a back injury forced him out of the side. When he returned, the captaincy was never given back to him. He was in fact ridiculed. Picked for the 2007 World Cup but wasn’t given a game and instead made to carry drinks. His persecutors today are legends of the game. Cricket is a funny game they say. 

T.M. Dilshan took up the captaincy at a time when nobody wanted it. With Murali retired, Dilshan’s bowling resources were thin. He was in for a rude shock when the team’s premier fast bowler announced his retirement from Test cricket at the age of 27. Two of our captains on IPL duty in India justified the fast bowler’s retirement from Test cricket. The script and the plot had been written and planned at Perera Gardens. It was nicely executed too. 

With limited resources Dilshan was rebuilding the team. Then the unthinkable happened. Usually when Sri Lankan teams go to South Africa Test matches barely last three days and often the tourists lose by an innings. But under Dilshan, Sri Lanka recorded their first Test win on South African soil in 2011. Before the tour was over, he was sacked as skipper. There had been a coup. A bloodless coup. 

Poor Dinesh Chandimal was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea during contract negotiations ahead of the 2014 ICC World T-20 in Dhaka. He turned his back on the administration showing solidarity with seniors. Cricket’s bigwigs promised to teach him a lesson. Some seniors sensed the opportunity to settle old scores. So they slowed down the over rate. That resulted in Chandimal being suspended. The poor bloke suffered in silence and ever since has been a reluctant leader.  

Angelo Mathews is a smart kid. He knew what some of these chaps were up to. So when he was captaining he told one of our legends that unless he finished his six balls in a stipulated number of minutes, he is not going to get a bowl again in the game. The fast bowler behaved. No more slower over rates. 

Mathews, however, couldn’t win all his battles. He got fed up and gave up the captaincy in July 2017. Six months later there was a change in team management. They pleaded with Mathews to take up captaincy again. Reluctantly, he took it up and soon realized that it was a poisoned chalice with the very people who requested him to take up the role accusing him of under-performing. It’s just not cricket.