Unscrupulous touts tarnish President’s image -Hashan Tillekeratne

By Ranjan Anandappa

Former Sri Lanka cricketer and a present day selector Hashan Tillekratne airing his views with regard to a news item that appeared in a certain newspaper that President Mahinda Rajapaske had offered money to Kumar Sangakkara to support the ruling party’s election campaign is an absolute falsehood. Sangakkara has vehemently denied that such an incident took place.

Tillekeratne said that anyone can support any party in a democratic country. He said that it has been false and cheap propaganda by some unscrupulous touts of the opposite parties to tarnish the ruling party’s strong campaign and image. There is a cyber war these days where lot of false stories are circulating with regard to the 2015 Presidential elections.

Shifting focus to the present cricket tour of New Zealand and concerned about Sri Lanka’s indifferent batting display in the first innings, being shot out for 138, the lowest against New Zealand, Tillekeratne, a national selector and a former Test player who was also a member of the 1996 World Cup winning team, was optimistic that the team will bounce back.

He said that the failure was mainly due to insufficient time for the team to get acclimatised to local conditions.

He said that the Lankans should have played at least a couple of three-day games before the Test match. He was confident that the team will put up a better performance once they get the measure of the pitch and the conditions.

Having played on numerous occasions in Kiwi land, Tillekeratne said that he too had to go through a similar predicament as the conditions were quite different from the that in the sub-continent or at home with the bounce and the moving ball. He said that teams visiting Sri Lanka will not find the going so tough or different due to the slowness of the pitches.

The team has a good opportunity to prepare themselves for the World Cup which will be staged in Australia and New Zealand. After the second Test in Wellington on January 3, Sri Lanka will meet the Kiwis in seven ODI’s in different venues.

Thereafter, they will take on New Zealand for the 8th occasion in a crucial World Cup group ‘A’ match at Christchurch on February 14 and a win there matters the most.

There are three wicket-keepers in the present XI. Kumar Sangakkara, Prasanna Jayawardene and Niroshan Dickwella who has kept wicket at Test match level.

And also Dinesh Chandimal who is not playing in the first Test.

Sangakkara handed over the keeping gloves to Prasanna Jayawardene sometime back as the number one stumper of the side. Dickwella has been tried out as a middle-order batsman.

He has displayed his batting abilities in no uncertain terms when the South Africans visited the island some time back.