THE POLITICS OF SRI LANKAN SPORT: Old or new blood? Sanath or Vandort? Testing Tests I

by Michael Roberts

In mid-1999 the Sidath Wettimuny Selection Committee revamped the aging cricket squad under Arjuna Ranatunga's regime after it had failed abysmally during the 1999 World Cup in England. New blood was injected into the ODI squads in particular.

In the immediate years that followed, the musical chairs in the governing body of cricket and resultant switches in Selection Committees hindered continuity of experimentation. But all the Selection Committees were savvy enough to insert Ranatunga and/or de Silva into the Test teams on a judicious basis (and later, when Hashan Tillakaratne mounted a case through weight of runs in the domestic tournament, he too was brought back into the fold).

As significantly in late 2001, in early 2002 Wettimuny, Tissera and others concluded that the major shortcoming that Sri Lanka would face in the forthcoming World Cup some 15-18 months away would be in their quality of batting rather than their bowling. So they approached the rotund Aravinda de Silva and suggested that he would be considered seriously for the ODI version as well if he made the effort to improve his fitness and speed. Since Tissera had suddenly become Chairman of Selectors by a twist of events at the dawn of 2002, this scheme carried bite.

Born on 17 October 1965 Aravinda at this moment was nearly 37 years old in 2002. Worse still he was slow and cumbersome in the field. He did work on his fitness and improve his movement a trifle.

But his speed of foot and nimbleness were still laboured though he possessed a safe pair of hands. He leaked runs in the field and could not be deployed easily in the inner ring of fielders. Moreover, his lack of acceleration denied extra runs to the other batsmen when he was non-striker so that potential threes were reduced to two runs, etc, etc.

No one objected when he was inserted into the Test squad for England in early summer 2002 by Tissera and Company. Nor were complaints made later when he became an integral part of the ODI squads preparing for the World Cup (e. g. tour of Australia) at the behest of a new Selection Committee headed by Guy de Alwis. As far as I know not ONE SINGLE VOICE suggested that he was too old. Since Sanath Jayasuriya had a considerable influence on the de Alwis selections, it is clear that he too wanted Aravinda in the side.

Ironically, the very same Jayasuriya is now being told, at the age of 36/37, that he is too old for the Test team and should make way for new blood, younger men in their twenties. This pressure was mounted in early 2006 not only by key figures in the governing body of that day but also by vociferous voices in the enthusiastic public (for instance in the Dilmah Forum and letters to the press).

First: how has this come about? How has a legend fallen foul of cricketing opinion? And, secondly, is the policy wholly justified? Let me address Question ONE first, necessarily on a conjectural basis. It seems to have begun with the ODI tour of India in late 2005 when Jayasuriya was carrying a troublesome right shoulder injury that circumscribed his agility on the field and his ability to bowl, though it did not restrict his normal range of shots (latter information directly from Tom Moody). His batting performance then was poor.

He was therefore dumped from the Test squad for India in the tour that followed (wisely in my view). But rumours circulated that he had appealed to the President of Sri Lanka to intervene on his behalf. I have no means of confirming this rumour or demonstrating, alternatively, that it was a canard circulated by wheeler-dealers and media men close to a faction opposed to the Dharmadasa board of governance in cricket.

Either way the effect was to lower his reputation in the views of those committed to the principle of fair choice and merit in team selections without interference from powerful men with no knowledge of cricket.

The recurrence of his shoulder injury in bizarre circumstances in early January 2006 at the very outset of the ODI series in New Zealand deepened the disrepute gathering around the man. But the injury was of the type amenable to quick recovery. Jayasuriya demonstrated his capacity when he flew into Australia late for the VB series of one-day matches and scored a rip-roaring century at Sydney which provided the platform for a comprehensive victory over the home side, Champion Australia.

As a close watcher of the matches I can also assure everyone that he remained nippy on the field: 37-year-old Aravinda would have been left standing (and Sanath was certainly quicker than some of the younger players).

He was rested from the two-Test series in Bangladesh but returned to the side for the two home tests against Pakistan. I gather that he not only failed in the three innings he played then but also (to rely on Aubrey Kuruppu) batted badly. It was during or immediately before the second of these Tests that his arm was twisted by those in power and he announced to the world that he would retire from the longer version of the game.

As soon as I reached Sri Lanka on 25 April 2006 I met a person close to the inner networks of cricket who told me that Sanath had been pressured to retire and was already regretting his decision. Another source close to the Board later told me that Moody had indicated to Sanath that he could not be assured of a place in the XI if he was part of a touring squad of sixteen (and this is as it should be).

This latter version does not negate the former tale - indeed I am sure that the twisting of Sanath's arm occurred and that the inspiration came from both the Kaluperuma Committee and the Dharmadasa circle. KM Nelson, one of Sanath's confidantes, a Selector no less and a grey figure in cricket circles, was the man who carried this request to Sanath and nailed the decision.

However, the wheel of fortune swung (as it can only swing in Lanka!). Forces and circumstances that I am not privy to effected a minor coup: an intervention from the Sports Minister in mid-May saw the dismissal of Kaluperuma and Nelson and the insertion of Ashantha de Mel as "Lord of the Selection Ring." De Mel spilled the beans about the manner in which Sanath had been pushed out, restored him to Test cricket, first in principle and then in corporeal person by dispatching him to England as a 'supernumerary' adjunct of the existing squad.

But that is to make a temporal leap. Let me return to late April (and indeed to late March) and my critical viewpoint at that point of time - without the benefit of Test matches in England and the de Mel factor. I firmly believed THEN that Sanath's retirement was premature. My reasoning in summary form was as follows:

1. There is no universal law that a fellow of 36 or 38 or even 40 is not able to play good cricket. One must take up the issue case by case and not apply the principle of a retirement age in mechanical fashion.

2. Jayasuriya was still fit and reasonably quick.

3. Unlike the other batsmen in contention he could Bowl reasonably well and indeed had good figures in Test Cricket.

4. With Atapattu's back problem looming large and every prospect of him being unfit for the tour of England, Jayasuriya should have been retained in the pool of potential choices without being considered an automatic choice.

5. It was important for the side to perform well in England. Towards this end I felt that one should mix and match the infusion of new blood. Tharanga and Kapugedera represented any sensible watcher's first choices of fresh faces. The issue was whether one chose two more 'Youngies' (where the term refers to the age range 19-27, or rather "relatively new to the Test scene"), or just one more or no more.

In brief, having selected two newcomers did one need yet two more. To present my answer in a nutshell: once Atapattu was ruled out, if I had been left to my own deices I would have opted for Jayasuriya and Arnold, the latter because he was an utility player, one who could field in any position and one who had been a success in England in 2002 before he was unceremoniously (and unfairly) relegated to the wilderness after three more test matches in difficult conditions.

However, aware that the Selection Committee was dead set against Arnold I was ready to bow to reality and would therefore have settled on one Oldie, Jayasuriya, and one Youngie, Vandort, for the remaining batting spots. Thus I would quite definitely have left out Mubarak (or Daniel or whoever the Youngie next in line).

My title, incidentally, does not contradict this position. It is a metaphoric expression, a theatrical way of highlighting the issue. "Vandort" stands for Youngie and "Sanath" stands for Oldie. One did not need four Youngies in the touring Test squad in England in order to build a team for the future.

Three Youngies, or even two, would have sufficed because there would be other opportunities and other platforms for this building work in the immediate future. The second part of my next article will clarify this point in addressing the second of my questions.