This week, Sri Lanka returned to Test cricket in the Caribbean after an absence of exactly one year. To think that the national team has gone a full 12 months without playing a single Test is staggering. The administrators who run the game have let down both the players and the fans.

It is equally disturbing to think that players like Dinesh Chandimal and Kasun Rajitha, who are specialists in the longest format, have effectively been left without work for an entire year. Let us hope the new administration gives Test cricket the respect it so richly deserves.

Cricket boards such as Sri Lanka’s and even South Africa’s seem content to play only the bare minimum required for the World Test Championship – 12 Tests in a two-year cycle. To make matters worse, there appears to be little appetite to organise matches outside the championship. Three-Test home series have become a distant memory, while a five-Test series is little more than a fantasy. At this rate, it is unlikely to happen in our lifetime.

For a nation that fought so hard to gain Test status, the way we now treat the format is deeply disappointing. Gentlemen like Gamini Dissanayake must surely be spinning in their graves.

Sri Lanka Cricket’s stock response is that Test cricket does not make money. Someone needs to remind them that SLC is not a business enterprise but a sporting body. Had they shown the same enthusiasm for nurturing the game’s foundations as they did for building cricket grounds to satisfy the whims and fancies of politicians, Sri Lankan cricket would be in a far healthier place today.

The authorities argue that, unlike the last 12 months, the next year looks promising, with the team scheduled to play 10 Tests. That may well be true, but it does not erase the fact that their attitude towards Test cricket has been woefully lackadaisical.

Cricket officials cling to statistics like a drunkard clings to a lamp post – for support rather than illumination.

We play so little Test cricket these days that we may never again produce a player who reaches 100 Tests or a bowler who claims 300 wickets. Great careers are built on opportunity, and opportunity is becoming increasingly scarce.

India, despite reserving more than two months of the calendar for the IPL, still manages to play a healthy number of Test matches each year. The number of nations playing Test cricket has grown in recent times, so logic dictates that the number of Tests Sri Lanka plays should also increase. Sadly, the opposite has happened, with the fixture list shrinking year after year.

One small ray of hope is the assurance given by Sidath Wettimuny that the issue will be addressed. As Chairman of the Cricket Committee, he is in a position to push the board’s executives to find ways and means of ensuring Sri Lanka plays more Test cricket.

by Rex Clementine ✍️