Fitness to the fore: Fact or fiction?

The Lankan cricket hierarchies in recent times have developed this canny ability of pulling out tantrums with their own players. The latest being the piece of paper circulated by the SLC Coaching and Cricket Committee (SCC)’s much respected chief Ranjit Fernando who has sent SOS signals through the Lankan cricket kingdom, claiming that its race horses are partially lame, and over that, they have an attitude.

At times these happenings are absolutely hilarious. Here, there is a Sri Lankan team that is performing at international level reaping results at all three levels of the game and thus helping Sri Lanka Cricket to keep its merchandise at optimum levels.

Right at this moment the Lankan team is a prize horse. They are winning Derbies, the Royal Ascots and even races from the village stables. True, in the process they may flounder once or twice, but in the global village of cricket the Lankans are on a high. Yet, the general acceptance of their performance seems to be sliding into down thumbs lane as a habit.

From 2007, look at the number of ICC finals with which the Lankan cricketers have become a part of. Then at their recent performance that has kept the whole cricketing world agape!

But, what do the Lankan cricketers get in return? After the 2007 World Cup final, the then skipper Mahela Jayawardena resigned from the captaincy. Then in 2011, Kumar Sangakkara who led the team to the ICC World Cup final in Mumbai relinquished his position upon returning to Sri Lanka and opted to be just a member of the team. Why? Only the future will tell. Generally a captain who is good enough to bring a team to the World Cup finals does not resign that easily.

Then arrived the recent contract problem where the SLC hierarchy and the players locked horns over the disbursement of ICC grants. This generated a friction of a bigger magnitude than the fisticuffs between politicians Dayasiri Jayasekera and Harin Fernando at a public forum.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. In reality, there is a huge rift between the players and some officials and it even has reached personal levels, where some players do not acknowledge the presence of certain officials. In return, the officials wait for a chance to pounce on them. A good example is the Mahela-Sangakkara burst at the Bandaranaike International Airport on the controversy over their retirement from T20 cricket. Both sides will have their own side of the story, but the truth is there is a rift between the officialdom and the players.

Sadly, on this background, a move is made by the of SLC’s Coaching