Sri Lanka’s World Cup campaign goes from bad to worse

Rex Clementine in Bombay

Sri Lankas’s World Cup campaign in India is going from bad to worse as the team suffered a humiliating 302 run defeat at the hands of the hosts in Bombay yesterday.Already knocked out of the semi-final stages of the sport’s showpiece event, Sri Lanka’s next big hope was to ensure that they finished among top eight to qualify for the Champions Trophy to be hosted by Pakistan in 2025. However, yesterday’s performance brought more doom for the former champions who have left two more games in their campaign.

Even in the 1970s, before the nation had gained full status of the ICC, Sri Lankan teams hadn’t fared so badly in World Cups against formidable teams like Clive Lloyd’s West Indies and Ian Chappell’s Australians.

Sri Lanka are no more a team that has been rebuilding. The current set of players, selectors and most of the coaching staff have been in charge for three years now and poor planning has brought Sri Lankan cricket to its knees and in fact a laughingstock in world cricket.

Unwillingness of individuals within the team set up to work collectively but remain loyal to friends and their club has spelt disaster. The Sri Lankan set up is hard to differentiate from the set up at SSC with all leading roles being handed to the Maitland Place club and unless a cleanup job takes place soon, we are in for further embarrassment.

SLC need to start by sacking the selectors. In this selection committee, we have seen the worst selection panel since the country gained Test status. As for Consultant Coach Mahela Jayawardene, the board should say thank you, give him a golden handshake by paying his remaining contract and send him back to Bombay where he can remain loyal to his SSC friends.

MJ was a great player. Outstanding captain (probably our best) but not someone to whom you can entrust your entire cricket set up be it picking coaches, selectors or restructuring domestic cricket for he is a bad team player. He strongly believes in his own opinions and takes others’ with a pinch of salt and that’s not how a successful organization works. In a country of the blind the one-eyed man is a king.