by Rex Clementine  

fans had barely recovered from the shock of the national cricket team’s disastrous campaign in the World Cup in India where they had finished ninth, failed to qualify for Champions Trophy and had suffered embarrassing defeats including to Afghanistan and Bangladesh. This week, the Under-19 team did not cover themselves in glory having gone down to UAE and Bangladesh in the Asia Cup.

It’s a pity that Bangladesh had been hiring Sri Lankan coaches for two decades to build their cricket and are producing results, but we are depending on coaches from overseas and are hitting new lows. That Bangladesh has been beating Sri Lanka in age group competitions for quite sometime now is nothing new, but the UAE loss came out of the blues.

It remains to be seen what excuses the pandits running cricket will come up with now for the humiliation in the Under-19 Asia Cup. Their excuses for the World Cup debacle were laughable indeed. When the senior team crashed, they claimed that the fitness levels of the players were below par but conveniently forgot that the system they had put in place had been implemented for well over two years.

As for the governing body, they brushed aside the World Cup flop claiming that cricket did not need urgent remedial measures pointing out at last year’s Asia Cup success. They are of course basking in past glories.

Unless authorities realize that they have issues to address and fix the problem, we are not going to come out of the lean patch.

There are issues that need to be addressed from school cricket where younger teams aren’t encouraged to win. The points system in place is bizarre. The structure in place does not encourage all-round cricketers and that is certainly not keeping pace with the moving trends of world cricket.

Obviously, now that the Under-19 team has crashed, questions will be asked whether players were picked on merit and whether there was any favouritism? You can brush aside these concerns saying that the loss to UAE was one off and the team will be well equipped to face the challenges during the Under-19 World Cup where they are pooled alongside Namibia, Zimbabwe and Australia in Group ‘C’.

The Under-19 team is not alone in failing to set decent totals. The senior team has faced the same problem and collapses are becoming very much part of Sri Lankan cricket culture. That trend needs to change and the only way it can change is by identifying players who will fight it out when the going gets tough.

Too many flashy players throwing their bats around taking risks too early in their innings has cost all Sri Lankan teams in recent years. Batting Coaches have failed to address the issues and find remedies.

The senior side finished as the worst fielding unit spilling as many as 16 catches during the World Cup. It is agreed that there are too many players who have not met fitness standards and their excesses have been excused. The same features haunt the junior team as well and we need to find a way out.

One man handpicked the coaching staff for both the senior and junior teams and the roles of those coaches need to be examined together with the role of the man who recommended them.

Much hype has been made with former captain Sanath Jayasuriya being appointed as the Consultant Coach of the High-Performance Center. While Jayasuriya will be able to identify grey areas and change the culture of players who come under the HPC, the urgent need is to introduce the changes to the senior side for that outfit has failed totally.

You would have expected a bigger role for Sanath. Something like Team Director where he would be able to address key issues and give priority to neglected disciplines like fielding, strategy and playing smart cricket. Your skill levels need not be extraordinary for you to be a good fielding unit. All what needs is the right attitude.  Playing smart cricket is not rocket science but Sri Lanka in recent years have come up with some dumb strategies.

There is a new selection panel in place as well and while they are expected to address some key areas their predecessors failed to look into; their selection policy will be interesting to see.

Like in every walk of professional life, in cricket too we will be better off if selected individuals only perform the roles they are entrusted with. One reason why Sri Lanka failed pathetically during the World Cup was because the Consultant Coach was getting involved in selections as well and it proved to be a disaster.

The warning signs were there for the West Indies for many years, but they failed to address burning issues pertaining to their cricket and they have not only faded away but are not competing in global tournaments anymore. Sri Lanka are going on the same path and unless they address the issue urgently they will have to face the music.