Sri Lanka under siege

A cornered general makes an impassioned plea for "patience":

by Callistus Davy

An image of a dented cricketing nation and the fact that its keepers have been living on borrowed time playing a game of musical chairs, which administrators themselves are compelled to acknowledge, will be the hidden factor when Sri Lanka takes on India in a three-match Test series that both countries cannot afford to miss out.

For too long has Sri Lanka invested and banked on the brilliance of individuals, the results of which are now beginning to show and scornfully inherited by a current administration whose members may have also played a part they would want to forget with none to pass the buck.

With an all-round routing at the hands of underdog Pakistan in the recent home series, Sri Lanka will only have a future to mend as the last of the island's cricketing giants that came through a dying or dead system, Kumar Sangakkara, hangs up his Lion-emblem shirt two weeks from now.

Whether Sri Lanka's passionately adoring followers will buy what administrators have to offer them, the bottom line is that the establishment knows the clock is ticking and ticking fast.

"Sri Lanka is going through a rebuilding process, please have patience", said a cornered Sri Lanka Cricket secretary Prakash Schafter in response to a question by a journalist as the series against India was presented.

But one man certain to face the music in a hostile environment and pay for the sins of unholy administrators of the past will be the beleaguered skipper Angelo Matthews who could find himself the most isolated captain in the world with Sangakkara also booking his place in the where-are-they-now files.

Mathews will carry the pitfalls of a nation whose international interests had always been compromised or undermined.

"We got to move on from the (lost) Pakistan series", said Mathews.

"We need to have a set team in the next six months and we cannot make any drastic changes".

While all other cricket playing countries have steadfastly blooded players with the future at stake, Sri Lanka still continues to introduce new faces either as stop-gaps for the injured or replacements for the retired.

Uncapped 25-year old spinner Jeffery Vandersay is the latest player to be tantalized by the selectors. He grabbed eight wickets in a three-day match against Pakistan but never made it to the team even when a struggling veteran Rangana Herath was left out from the third Test.

The media went to town with his sideshow exploits but Vadersay is now a forgotten soul or perhaps waiting for a regular to be injured.