Australian, Pakistan tours a rebuilding exercise- Duleep Mendis

By Ravi LADDUWAHETTY

Chairman of Sri Lanka Cricket Selectors Duleep Mendis believes that the forthcoming Australian tour of Sri Lanka at the end of the month and the forthcoming away series in Pakistan would be a rebuilding exercise.

Sri Lanka will play three Tests, Five One Day Internationals against Australia and will end the home tour with a T-20. There will also be an away series in Pakistan following the Australian tour.

Former seniors of the team, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas and Sanath Jayasuriya are out and these will be tours that youngsters will have to fill in the slots where they will have to play with responsibility to prove themselves, Mendis told the Sunday Observer.

He also said that Sri Lankan team would be able to perform better on domestic wickets rather than overseas wickets and youngsters such as Dinesh Chandimal and Jeewan Mendis should be able to perform now that only skipper Thillekeratne Dilshan and former Skippers Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene remain from the old guard. He also said that Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) will host a media briefing soon to explain matters relating to the just concluded tour of England.

Meanwhile, international media reports said that Australia's tour of Sri Lanka was going ahead as scheduled. The tourists are becoming acutely aware of the significance of their visit.

The Aussie players have resolved to carry on with their first Test series in the island nation since 2004.

Reports said that the Australian department of Foreign Affairs and Trade raised no objection to Cricket Australia's plans during their most recent briefing. Central to Cricket Australia's thinking are the ideas expressed by former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara, who spoke of cricket's capacity to unite communities and countries during his Cowdrey lecture to the MCC in London on July 4.

Sangakkara had spoken glowingly of the game's capacity for good, particularly in his nation's post-war future.

The Australian team has found itself in fraught political and moral territory before, most notably on the brief 2004 tour of Zimbabwe. Australia A's current presence in Zimbabwe is an indication of Cricket Australia's desire to help encourage the regeneration of a country, and administrators and view the Sri Lanka visit in the same light.

"Our view on touring Sri Lanka is the same as it is on going to Zimbabwe [for the Australia A tour], using cricket as a way to bring people together and aid the community," a Cricket Australia spokesman has been quoted as having said. "Our travel advice hasn't changed and the advice is that safety and security for the tour is appropriate."

The pre-tour visit to Sri Lanka by a Cricket Australia and Australian Cricketers' Association delegation last month included discussions of opportunities for engagement with the local population, with school visits or clinics two possible options. Paul Marsh, chief executive of the ACA, has been quoted as having said the airing of the Channel 4 documentary had helped ensure the players would be acutely aware of their role as ambassadors for the game when they arrived in Sri Lanka at the end of July.

"From a cricket perspective the guys are going over there to play cricket and they'll be good ambassadors, they will bring some joy to the people of Sri Lanka like they have done in the past, and that'll be their focus, to put on a good series over there.

"We've been through this before with other countries, players play an apolitical role as sportspeople, plus as individual players they've always got their own options as to whether they tour, who they meet, who they mingle with and these sorts of things.

At this stage there's no reason the tour won't go ahead, but we'll make sure the players are aware of all the issues."