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| Sunday, 11 May 2003 |
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Re-enter Mahela Jayawardene by SRIAN OBEYESEKERE Sri Lankan cricket is just negotiating a transition. That it happens to be on all wheels, from administration to team building is a reflection by itself. It has crash landed all of a sudden, requiring new mechanism and input at all levels after Sri Lanka signed off a limping World Cup campaign in a semi-final defeat to Australia last March. The lead up to the men administering the game padding up for an annual general meeting goes to generate the interest. Indeed, it is significant that the changes come as a whole nation bubbles with great expectations. With cricket demanding its dues, for a long, long time, the clubs seeped in the game island-wide from where talent is fed to sustain national requirements, had been bemoaning they had lost their say in the running of things. Whatever the minus factors that have contributed to things requiring changes, that it co-relates to a chaotic history right back at the administrative arm called the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) must be seen as a root cause. For some 5 years the game had been run on the infirmity of a temporary basis by three successive interim committees installed. It would not be an understatement to say that the dawn of the `interim' was by necessity of having to restore law and order after a fracas at the 1999 hustings. Thilanga Sumathipala won a second term at a hotly contested election with his rival Clifford Ratwatte claiming that it had been rigged with the issue ending in courts. But since the cricketing community has by far and large felt that the game was in `no man's land' with various allegations and counter allegations being made within. Situated at the tip of several modern cricketing complexes which border it, such as two of the premier clubs - Sinhalese Sports Club and Nondescript Cricket Club and further away the Colombo Cricket Club down ritzy Maitland Place, the BCCSL, also familiarly known as the Cricket Board, stands central as the local citadel of the game over a century of years. But it has been far-flung since the good old days when the words 'gentleman's game' held sacred in the hallowed citadel. It is no secret that it transformed into a honeycomb for buzzing bees soon after Sri Lanka's World Cup success in 1996. Ana Punchihewa, the man who gave new meaning and definition to Lankan cricket by evolving foreign expertise and technology was booted out of office after just one year at the helm. In favour of the interim committees would be the argument that the State had to turn to the resources of having hand-picked intellectuals temporarily to put things in shape at a disorganised BCCSL. But through all this, the game has taken a heavy toll of the resultant side effects. Some quarters in fact hold that it had had a bearing on the cricketers itself. The disharmony has intensified. For an institution where huge money running into millions, most of which is in foreign exchange, holds sway, some officials from time to time have being blamed of misusing funds released for development work. In the setting of all the ups and downs the game has undergone from the establishment to the cricketer, what must be seen as a turning point in getting back on track could be the resignation from the captaincy by Sanath Jayasuriya. It is some co-incidence that in the wake of it came the changes. The announcement of holding the BCCSL's AGM to boot which seems set to supersede the cricket in the middle. And understandably so. It has evoked a type of enthusiasm among the clubs as if its members had awoken from a slumber with the hustings round the corner. If Jayasuriya, only 33 years, chucked up the coveted job at a time captains throughout the world tend to stay put so as to be relieved to concentrate on his batting alone, it has been the cutting edge as to the long-term effects on Lankan cricket. It left the selectors momentarily in a dilemma for a suitable replacement. Certainly 18 wins leading in 38 Test matches cannot be further from being satisfying for one on whom the mantle was thrust upon without little captaincy material, as much going for a one-day record of some 67 wins from 119 matches. Indeed, the Jayasuriya empasse has with it destined the country's cricket on a new course, the advent of 25-year old Mahela Jayawardene from the holocaust of temporary hibernation for the Sharjah triangular after a dismal performance at the World Cup yet winning the faith of the selectors as future long-term captaincy material by the selectors in naming him vice captain for the ongoing triangular one-day series. Certainly it is a big leap forward for the exciting right hand batsman whose willow work has won the hearts of the international community as an artist in his trade despite that miserable run of a measley 21 runs from 8 innings at the World Cup. Jayawardene's elevation from such hopelessness to be hand-picked as one of the nations torch-bearers at that level gives new dimension of new things expected in a transition where he is the favourite candidate to finally takeover the captaincy at both levels. And this island nation, which has today forged to rank among the top most of world cricket since being accepted to the ICC fold in 1981, has been one of the most talked of after Australia and South Africa. The Muralitharans, Ranatungas and Aravindas have served the game so much to command that respect for self and country. In the recent team changes necessitated despite Sri Lanka ending up as an envious semi-finalist at the World Cup when better known teams like South Africa as hosts made an early exit before the Super Sixes, the selectors can take heart from the drawn 2-Test series against New Zealand under the leadership of veteran Hashan Tillekeratne while at the time of writing Friday the 8th, the triangular series contested by Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Pakistan would give them an inclination of 32-year old Marvan Atapattu's captaincy potential. While a freak accident which has left him a doubtful starter for Saturday's opener after that nasty collision with Daniel Vettori at Asgiriya in last week's second Test match against the Kiwis, it has with it created a new atmosphere as far as young Jayawardene is concerned. In whichever capacity he serves, Jayawardene's new lease must be viewed as a turning point in his career where the SSC batsman would be looking starry-eyed at the world before him. The demanding need to achieve and conquer as never before. In effect, the recent changes must see 35-year old Hashan Tillekeratne in a re-born world with a new lease in charge of the Test team where he can look to end a once troubled career of being recalled after a 2-year break, on a happy note of retirement. For Atapattu, on the other hand, whose best form has been witnessed in the last 2 years or so, finds himself of having to overcome a hoodoo of on field nightmares in rising to the occasion in delivering the goods in the ongoing triangular. It is the second such incident involving Atapattu after the Brian Lara incident at the same venue two years ago. Not the ideal type of eve of one-day blessings. Indeed, the cricket ahead with an AGM round the corner will open a flurry of activity in looking to putting Lankan cricket back on track. |
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