Oh! To be in England, now that Sri Lanka is here
The Sri Lanka Cricket team will be in action at the forthcoming Cricket World Cup ( WC) in England, to regain the prestige the island nation had in the past, as a world class outfit with excellent fighting qualities.
The selectors took a long time to announce the final squad and the captain. They did not seem to be in a happy state, considering the performances of the team in New Zealand and South Africa, and had to rely on an inter provincial tournament.
As the Lankans will have a tough task ahead of them, with the captain having to play a leading role in guiding the team, at least, to the Knockout stage. The captain should be able to command the respect of his team, and the players should respect the captain. Sri Lanka’s past captains in the calibre of Michael Tissera, Anura Tennekoon, Bandula Warnapura and the WC winning Arjuna Ranatunga, were some of the captains who were respected by the players, as well as the public.
Young Dimuth Karunaratne, with limited experience as captain, will have to lead from the front, to get the best out of his team. On the road to success, it is always "We", not "Me". Holding the team as a unit will make things easy for the skipper to achieve their target.
Most of the players are on their maiden tour of England and would take time to acclimatise to the conditions over there, though in a world event like this, there will be very little time.
Needless to say, in the Cricket WC, the competition and the stakes are high, with the world’s top players in action. Our cricketers should be mindfulof their responsibilities and the part they have to play. It will be a totally different experience and cannot be compared with any competition back home.
In the last 2 ODI series against New Zealand and South Africa, Sri Lanka’s batting and bowling flopped. In batting, wrong shot selection, improper planning and the failure to cope with both pace and spin, caused their downfall. In almost every match, either a fast bowler or a spinner capturing 5 wickets, and a batsman or two scoring 100, was a regular feature against Sri Lanka, which meant that our batsmen had to chase huge totals, in a losing cause.
In the absence of an established opening pair, the makeshift openers failed to lay a good foundation for the batsmen to follow, in building up a respectable total. Our frontline batters never realised they are representing a country, and just kept swinging at every ball, as they as had not learned the fundamentals of batting. Except on one or two on occasions, nobody really attempted to convert the 20s and 30s into big scores.
As for our bowling attack, the fast bowlers do not adjust their pace, line and length and their run- up according to the format of the game. The best example is Chaminda Vaas, who adjusts his pace, line and length and run-up to match the format of the game. The fast bowlers’ duty is to hit the seam on the deck and allow the ball to do the rest, the way India’s Buwaneshva Kumar does.
Sri Lanka is still to find replacements to fill the voids created by the exit of Mutthiah Murslitharan and Rangana Herath. If there is a spinner in the side who can keep the batsmen in check, that will enable the bowler at the other end, to find his length and make variations.
Players carry forward what they learn from school coaches. Correct coaching at school level is very vital for one’s future. Gone are the days of great coaches like Gerry Goonaratne, P. W. Perera, R. B. Wijesinghe, W. A. N. Silva, Charlie Warnakulasuriya, Orville Abeynaike and Lionel Mendis to name a few. These great coaches, including Nelson Mendis, who is still in the business, guide and teach the youngsters in every aspects of the game, such as techniques in batting and bowling, discipline on and off the field, and even table manners.
Every cricketer representing the country should keep in mind that they are ambassadors of their countries. Their conduct, on and off the field, is watched worldwide.
Millions of cricket fans back home will keep their fingers crossed, expecting our young bunch of cricketers to put aside their past failures and the emotional upheavel caused by the trag i c incidents that took place recently, to regain the past glory of Sri Lanka as a great cricketing nation.