Sports
Where have all the fans gone?
by Rex Clementine
When you travel to West Indies, you often find a lot of cricket fans who are no longer interested in visiting the grounds to watch their team play. Once a team feared by all and sundry, the West Indies have currently become also rans unable to compete with top teams. They failed to qualify for last year’s World Cup.
We all grew up marveling and admiring West Indies. So much so Kumar Sangakkara once said that when West Indies played Sri Lanka, he wasn’t sure which team to support. Sanga of course is not alone. There are many of us who wished that we could bat like Viv Richards and wanted to bowl like Malcolm Marshall.
When you are looking at the crowds for the current Zimbabwe series, you wonder whether Sri Lankan fans are heading in the same direction as the West Indies fans. Woe be the day if that happens.
The cricket team of course is no doubt desperately trying to play like West Indies of present. Discipline and commitment are lacking and the management is tolerating players taking short cuts instead of putting in hard yards. The Consultant Coach who has been in the job for over two years now is complaining about skill levels being not there among the current generation. He is of course beating around the bush not putting in enough time himself to dig the sport out of the current mess.
We do not wish to be doomsday prophets, but when spectators turn away from the game it’s a bad sign. Lack of interest for the game could be many fold. It may be that these days T-20s receive more attention than ODIs. People aren’t bothered anymore to spend eight hours in the ground and are happier with three hours of cricket which T-20 gives. They will be back for the T-20s.
Maybe that this is Zimbabwe and spectators aren’t interested. Maybe the cost of living is making everyone feel the pinch.
All these could be contributory factors for lack of spectators at games, but you cannot deny the fact that people are fed up with the game. We are in urgent need for role models; characters who will not only entertain but those who put us in the world map.
Cricket gave us enormous joy. Time was when India feared our batters like the plague and England ran out of ideas to contain our batters. Today we are marveling at the skills of Virat Kohli and Joe Root while the guardians of our sport are happy that we are beating UAE, Oman, Ireland and Scotland. Good luck to them.
The blame of course shouldn’t be rested on the administration alone. Sure, they have made some blunders. They have handed the captaincy to wrong guys, taken the sting out of domestic competitions by doubling the First-Class teams and spent colossal amounts of money on vanity projects without developing the game. The players themselves need to take a fair share of the blame.
Most current cricketers come from humble backgrounds. Their road towards the national cricket team is faced with many hardships but once they get there, they find a comfort zone and rarely do you see them pushing boundaries.
Lack of leadership within the team is one main reason why standards have dropped, and performances have gone down. From time to time, we have brought in individuals to fix the mess, but they have let the sport and the fans down badly entertaining their own whims and fancies. Time is running out and unless we address these issues Sri Lankan cricket will head the same way of West Indies.
Salman Ali Agha said that he would have done things ‘differently”, after Mehidy Hasan Miraz ran him out in controversial circumstances in the second ODI in Dhaka.
Agha, who made 64 from 62 balls, had been backing up at the non-striker’s end when Mohammad Rizwan drove the ball back towards him. He was still out of his ground as Mehidy swooped round behind him in an attempt to gather, and Agha had appeared ready to pass the ball back to the bowler before Mehidy reached down to grab it first and throw down the stumps.
Agha reacted furiously to the dismissal, throwing his gloves and helmet down in disgust at the decision. However, he later came to the post-match press conference, ahead of captain Shaheen Shah Afridi and player of the match Maaz Sadaqat, to clear the air.
“I think sportsman spirit has to be there,” Agha said. “What he [Mehidy] has done is in the law. I think if he thinks it’s right, it’s right, but if you ask me my perspective, I would have done differently. I would have gone for sportsman spirit. We haven’t done this [type of thing] previously, we would never do that in the future as well.”
Agha explained that he had been trying to pick up the ball to give to Miraz, thinking it was likely to have been called dead. “Actually, the ball hit on my pad and then my bat,” he said. “So I thought he can’t get me run-out now, because the ball already hit on my pad and my bat.
“I was just trying to give him the ball back. I was not looking for the run or anything like that, but he already decided [to make the run-out].”
Agha however regretted his angry reaction. “It was just heat-of-the-moment kind of stuff,” he said. “If you ask me what would I have done, I would have done things differently. But it was everything, whatever happened after that, it was in the moment.”
He was also involved in a robust exchange with Bangladesh wicketkeeper Litton Das, though he didn’t divulge many of the details.
“I can’t remember what I was saying and I can’t remember what he was saying,” he said. “I’m sure I wasn’t saying nice things, and I’m sure he wasn’t saying nice stuff as well. But it was just heat of the moment, so we are fine.
Asked if he had patched things up with Mehidy, Agha said: “I haven’t yet, but don’t worry, I’ll find him.”
Pakistan won the match by 128 runs via the DLS method.
[Cricinfo]
The Bahrain and Saudi Arabia Grands Prix that were scheduled for next month are set to be cancelled as a result of the war in the Middle East.
A formal decision to call off the races has not yet been made but is expected before the end of the weekend.
Freight would need to start being shipped to the Middle East in the coming days. With no sign of the conflict between the US/Israel and Iran coming to a conclusion, holding the races would put personnel at too great a risk.
Neither event will be replaced, with the season being cut to 22 grands prix and F1 taking a commercial hit of more than £100m, given Bahrain and Saudi Arabia pay two of the highest hosting fees.
The race in Bahrain was scheduled to be on 12 April with Jeddah the following weekend.
Consideration was given to holding events at Portimao in Portugal, Imola in Italy or Istanbul Park in Turkey.
But it was accepted that the time to organise a race at any of those locations was too short, and there was little chance of securing a hosting fee.
The decision will mean there is a five-week break between the Japanese Grand Prix on 29 March and Miami on 3 May.
(BBC)
Royal College made steady progress in reply to their arch rivals’ first innings total as skipper Rehan Peiris and Ramiru Perera guided them to 175 for four wickets at stumps on day two of the 147th Battle of the Blues at the SSC ground on Friday.
Royal needed only 51 overs to reach their end-of-day total after S. Thomas’ College had earlier adopted a cautious approach before being bowled out for 302 runs.
Royal suffered an early setback when open batsman Hirun Liyanarachchi was dismissed for naught in the very first over, caught behind by Aaron Kodituwakku off the bowling of Gimhan Mendis.
Skipper Rehan Peiris then steadied the innings, repairing the early damage with two useful partnerships. He first added 41 runs for the second wicket with Udantha Gangewatta and followed it up with a 34-run stand for the third wicket alongside Sri Lanka Under-19 skipper Vimath Dinsara.
Dinsara struggled to find fluency during his stay at the crease, managing 11 runs off 30 balls before being trapped leg-before by Gimhan Mendis, who finished the day with two wickets.
Rehan continued to anchor the innings and produced the most productive stand of the Royal innings when he combined with Ramiru Perera for a vital 78-run partnership for the fourth wicket. The Royal skipper’s determined knock finally ended on 63 when he was dismissed by Ludeesha Matarage.
From there, Ramiru Perera and Yasindu Dissanayake ensured there were no further setbacks, batting cautiously until bad light forced the umpires to call off play.
Perera remained unbeaten on 70, an attractive innings that included ten boundaries, while Dissanayake provided solid support at the other end as Royal closed the day strongly.
Earlier in the day, resuming from their overnight score, the Thomians continued with their ultra-cautious approach, scoring at just over two runs per over. Reshon Solomon top-scored with 66 runs, while Ludeesha Matarage and Raphael Hettige chipped in with useful contributions in the twenties.
S. Thomas’ were eventually bowled out for 302 just before the lunch interval on the second day, having consumed 124 overs during their four-session first innings.
Gagan Gamage was the pick of the Royal bowlers with impressive figures of four wickets for 49 runs. He received good support from Sehandu Sooriyaarachchi, who claimed three wickets for 64 runs, while Himaru Deshan picked up two wickets for 43. Ramiru Perera also chipped in with a wicket to complete the Thomian innings.
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