Opinion
India – Aussie: Good lessons to Sri Lankan cricketers
By Dr D. CHANDRARATNA
Turnarounds, we know from history, can never be predicted. But Indian lower order debutants did a magnificent turnaround last week that will go straight into history books. There is much to be learnt from the recently concluded dazzling cricket series between Australia and India. What is interesting to note is that some of the new players, who excelled in this Test, have overcome turnarounds in their real lives, too. These are lessons for Sri Lankan cricketers who have not really grasped the significance of playing for one’s country.
The Australian papers carried the stories of the new caps handed before the Gabba Test and how they snared the chances with both hands. Natarajan, is the son of a loom worker who had no money for luxuries, like cricket gear and shoes. For many years, Natarajan, who was asked to remain in Australia only as a net bowler, says he had to think a hundred times before investing in new shoes in his earlier life. His mother wept with joy when she saw him representing India, on TV, on that momentous day in Canberra. Siraj rose to become India’s new ball bowler, despite being born to a poor rickshaw driver. His father died and he couldn’t perform his last rites as he was in Australia on national duty. His rich neighbour, a retired Army man, throughout his local cricketing life, sponsored Washington Sundar, born to poor parents. His name was Washington. Sundar Senior had earlier selected the religious name Sri Nivasan for his first male son, but at the last moment changed his mind and named the baby ‘Washington’ as a tribute to his benefactor. Before his untimely death, he had mentioned that if he had another son he would name him Washington Junior. So much for the debt of gratitude. Navdeep Saini’s father was a government driver and could not afford expensive cricket coaching for his son. So Saini played exhibition matches with the tennis ball at Rs.300 a match to fund his dreams. These stories should inspire future generations of cricket players in our developing country.
A media blog reported that ‘All their failures, all their struggles, all their doubts and all their insecurities – all that was settled once and for all in this Test match’. Also there is something else. They not only sustained tremendous pressure, but also took hard knocks all over their bodies against ‘one of the best Australian attacks ever’. In doing so, they have made us realise that while a five-hour IPL match can create instant celebrities, Test Cricket, which stretches over five days, creates real heroes.
Coming back to those hard knocks and injuries they sustained, it is perplexing as to why the bouncer is not banned from the game yet. It’s no brainer to rid the sport of this menace. It is sickening to see medium built cricketers, especially from Asia, getting hit by the heavily built muscle men bowling at the rib cage and above, to intimidate and possibly kill the sportsmen. What one may ask is the sportsmanship of the world’s best bowler from Australia bouncing to the world’s worst batsman, other than to injure him or even kill him. Hope this will be eradicated from the game, and sooner the better. Penalizing the bowler ‘a posteriori’ is meaningless after the damage is done. All things these days are science driven, and why are the injuries bouncers’ cause an exception. This weapon, invented by the West, should be banned in international cricket. Anything that gives an unfair advantage to one side is, as per the famous aphorism goes, ‘ is not cricket’. Cricket is a competitive sport, no doubt, but we do not treat the opponents as enemies. It is only a game and not a war game.
In the same vein, it is time to put a stop to the racial and vulgar sledging mostly by the western cricketers, as was experienced by Ravi Ashwin in the recent series. We need not put up with excuses such as that ‘we need to grow up’, ‘do not be sissies’, etc. The time to grow up ‘to be vulgar’ is not necessary culturally, and/or morally anymore. We must have the guts to educate the world body that the time to abide by lessons of the Empire days is long gone past. If the umpires cannot stop the taunts, the players have a right to walk off the field than sacrifice their wicket. I cannot understand why the cricketing authorities, particularly the Asians, do not stand up to the antics of White Europeans in the playing field. No fieldsman has the right to torment any cricketer, no matter the complexion, to gain an unfair advantage. This is the 21st century and we should not be bowled over by our former colonial friends anymore. Once again such behaviour is also ‘not cricket’.
The first and only tsunami that Sri Lanka experienced was on Boxing Day(26th) of December 2004. My wife and I, as usual, went down to Modara in Moratuwa to purchase our seafood requirements of seafood from our familiar fishmonger, Siltin, from whom we had been buying fish for a long time. Sometimes we used to take a couple of friends of ours. But on this day, it was only both of us that went on this trip.
We made our purchases and were returning home and when we came up to the Dehiwala bridge, many people were looking down at the canal from both sides of the bridge. This was strange, as normally if there was something unusual, it would be on one side.
Anyway, we came home unaware of anything that had happened. A school friend of mine (sadly he is no longer with us) telephoned me and asked whether I was aware of what had happened. When I answered him in the negative, he told me to switch on the TV and watch. Then when I did so and saw what was happening, I was shocked. But still I did not know that we had just managed to escape being swept away by the tsunami.
Later, when I telephoned Siltin and asked him, he said that both of us had a narrow escape. Soon after we had left in our car, the tsunami had invaded the shore with a terrifying wave and taken away everything of the fishmongers, including their stalls, the fish, weighing scales and money. The fishmongers had managed to run to safety.
This had been about five minutes after we had left. So, it was a narrow shave to have escaped the wrath of the demining tsunami( the name many Sri Lankans came to know after it hit our island very badly}
HM NISSANKA WARAKAULLE
Sri Lanka has recorded a staggering 375 elephant deaths in the past eleven and a half months due to a multitude of causes, according to the Department of Wildlife Conservation. U. L Thaufeeq, Deputy Director – Elephant Conservation said the deaths include 74 from gunshots, 53 from electrocution, 49 from hakka patas (explosive devices hidden in food), seven from poisoning, 10 from train accidents, three from a road accident, and six by drowning. It makes such diabolical reading!
“The causes of other deaths are due to natural causes or causes that could not be identified. Most of the elephants that died were young,” the official said.
Meanwhile, the human-elephant conflict has also taken a toll on people, with 149 human deaths reported this year.
Accordingly, human-elephant conflict has resulted in 524 deaths of both elephants and humans in 2024.
In 2023, a total of 488 elephants and 184 people have died consequent to the conflict, according to Wildlife Department statistics.
The human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka has escalated to unprecedented levels with reasons like habitat destruction, encroachment, and the lack of sustainable coexistence measures contributing to the issue.
This is an indictment of the Wildlife Department for just giving the sad yearly statistics of shocking losses of our National treasures !
Given the fact that Sri Lanka boasts of 29.9% of the country declared as protected forests, Sri Lanka is a haven for nature lovers. Boasting 26 national parks, 10 nature reserves including 3 strict nature reserves, and 61 sanctuaries, the national parks in Sri Lanka offer an incredible variety of wildlife experiences.
Taken in that context, the million dollar question is why on earth the Wildlife Department is not being proactive to capture these magnificent animals and transport them into protected sanctuaries, thus effectively minimising dangers to villagers ?
Being a Buddhist country primarily, to turn a blind eye to these avoidable tragic deaths to mankind and wild elephants, we should be ashamed !
As a practising Buddhist myself, I think our clergy could play a major part in calling upon the Wildlife Department to get their act together sooner rather than later to protect human elephant conflicts !
Sri Lanka being a favourite destination amongst foreign tourists, they are bound to take a dim view of what is happening on the ground!
If the top brass in the responsible department are not doing their job properly, may be there is a case for the new President to intervene before it gets worse!
All animal lovers hope and pray the New Year will usher in a well coordinated plan of action put in place to ensure the well being of wildlife and villagers !
Sunil Dharmabandhu
Wales, UK
This has reference to the article from the Aircraft Owners and Operators Sri Lanka, titled ‘Closer look at regulatory oversight and its impact on Tourism’, published on Tuesday, 24th December 2024.To explain further, in the beginning there was the Air Navigation Act No 15 of 1950 which was followed by the Air Navigation Regulations (ANR) of 1955. This was long before the national airline had acquired pressurised aircraft, intercontinental jets, sophisticated navigation equipment, satellite communication and automatic landing systems, and ‘glass’ flight-deck instrumentation.
Today, civil aviation in Sri Lanka is governed by Civil Aviation Act Number 14 of 2010. Yet the Air Navigation Regulations (ANR) promulgated back in 1955 remain in force.
These outdated regulations still stipulate rules forbidding the carriage of passengers on the airplane’s wings or undercarriage (landing gear). In short, they are neither practical nor user-friendly. In contrast, the Air Navigation Regulations of other countries have progressed and are easy to read, understand, and implement.
To overcome the problem of outdated regulations, as an interim measure in 1969 the then Minister of Communications and Transport, Mr E.L.B. Hurulle issued a Government Gazette notification declaring that the Standard and Recommended Procedures (SARPs) in Annexes to the ICAO Convention signed by Ceylon in 1944 shall be made law.
Even so, nothing much was done to move with the times until updating of the Civil Aviation Act 14 of 2010, while the Air Navigation Regulations remained unchanged since 1955. However, these regulations were modified from time to time by the promulgation of Implementing Standards (IS) and General Directives (GDs) which were blindly ‘cut and pasted’ by the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL), from the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) Annexe ‘SARPS’ without much thought given. To date there are literally 99 IS’s starting from 2010.
The currently effective air navigation regulations are not in one document like the rest of the world, but all over the place and difficult for the flying public to follow as they are not regularly updated. This sad situation seems to have been noticed by the current regime.
The National Tourism Policy of the ruling NPP states, “Domestic air operations are currently limited due to high cost and regulatory restrictions. The current regulatory and operational environment will be reviewed to ensure domestic air connectivity to major tourist destinations. The potential of operating a domestic air schedule with multiple operators is proposed. Additionally, domestic airports and water aerodromes in potential key areas will be further developed, for high-end tourism growth.”
“The tourism policy recognises Sri Lanka’s potential to develop Sri Lanka’s aviation-based specialised tourism products, including fun flying, hot air ballooning, paragliding, parachuting and skydiving, and scenic seaplane operations. To facilitate the growth of these niche markets, existing regulations will be reviewed with the aim of attracting capable investors to develop and operate these offerings.”
It remains to be seen whether the NPP government lives up to those promises.
Note:
That OPA report talks of two funds: ‘Connectivity’ and ‘Viability’ for a limited period like three or five years to help jump-start the domestic aviation industry.
The ‘Connectivity Fund’ will cap the seat price for local passengers to a more affordable value to destinations while the ‘Viability Fund’ will assume that all seats are occupied and compensate the operator for any unutilised seat. The intention is to popularise domestic aviation as a safe, quick and convenient mode of transport.
Capt. Gihan A Fernando
RCyAF/ SLAF, Air Ceylon, Air Lanka, Singapore Airlines and Sri Lankan Airlines.
Now A Fun Flier
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