Cricket Xtra: Sri Lankan cricket in disarray

Ajit Vijaykumar 06:32 08/02/2016
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  • On its knees: Sri Lanka cricket.

    It is said no news is good news. And Sri Lankan fans must be getting desperate for some silence on that front. For close to a year now, their team have been in the spotlight for one sad reason after another. And given the state of the national side, things aren’t expected to improve any time soon.

    Veteran batsmen Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara staggered their retirements to allow the youngsters to get used to the pressure and also learn how to take care of affairs on their own.

    Angelo Mathews was entrusted with managing the players, having been an understudy for more than a season. But after Sangakkara called it a day following the August Test against India last year, the team has spiralled out of control.

    One of the biggest issues to emerge over the past season is the atmosphere in the dressing room. In the absence of Mahela and Kumar and veterans Lasith Malinga and Tillakaratne Dilshan either unavailable or misfiring, there is no senior figure in charge. Also coach Marvan Atapattu resigned in September and that has only led to a fall in disciplinary standards.

    It started with the third Test between Sri Lanka and India in Colombo in September where Dhammika Prasad, Dinesh Chandimal and Lahiru Thirimanne were all charged by the ICC for unruly behaviour during feisty exchanges with seamer Ishant Sharma, who himself was handed a ban for his part in the incident.

    Then after the conclusion of the disastrous New Zealand tour this year, where they lost the Test, ODI and T20 series, the team was rocked by reports of infighting and late night partying before crucial games.

    Sri Lanka’s sports minister promised an investigation into what he called “scandalous behaviour”, while captain Mathews said there will be “no mercy” for those who are found guilty. But the main issue is, how did the situation reach this stage?

    Mathews is 28 and is in the same age bracket as most of the team and should have known exactly what was going on in the camp. News of players having a tense relation with interim coach Jerome Jayaratne and Dilshan clashing with a fan who heckled him and told him to retire have only made the situation worse.

    It’s not as if Sri Lanka don’t have other issues to contend with. Opening batsman Kusal Perera faces a four year ban after he tested positive for a prohibited substance. Off-spinner Tharindu Kaushal has been banned by the ICC from bowling the doosra as it was found to be illegal. Star pacer Malinga’s fitness is a major concern ahead of the World T20 and it is still unclear who will lead the side in India.

    And then there is the issue of match fixing. Sri Lanka suspended fast bowling coach Anusha Samaranayake for two months over an alleged attempt to fix a Test against West Indies. He is accused of approaching two Sri Lankan players to underperform in the Galle Test in October.

    Things took a turn for the worse with the ICC suspending former chief curator of the Galle Stadium, Jayananda Warnaweera, for three years for failing to cooperate with the governing body’s Anti-Corruption Unit. He had already been suspended for two years by the Sri Lanka board on the same charge in November.

    Take all of it into account and you get a depressing picture.

    Sri Lanka are seventh in the ICC Test rankings and fifth in ODIs. Their decline has been swift and stunning, with a danger of the island nation turning into the next West Indies, where talented players are losing their way due to off-field distractions and in the absence of strong leadership.

    Things will only get tougher from here on. Sri Lanka travel to India for three T20 matches, which start tomorrow, and in the absence of veterans like Malinga, Mathews and left-arm spinner Rangana Herath, can expect a tough outing.

    Even Dilshan has been ruled out of the first T20 in Pune due to a hand injury and that adds to the headache. Then there is the Asia Cup before the World T20. With so much uncertainty and disquiet, you wouldn’t want to be a part of the Sri Lankan dressing room.

    The money train’s back

    Tournaments comes and go, teams rise and fall, but nothing brings the cricketing world to a standstill like an IPL auction. This year, big names like Shane Watson and Yuvraj Singh received bids in excess of $1 million. But it’s the salaries of lesser known domestic players that caught the eye.

    It is true that there can only be a certain number of foreign players in each squad, hence the discrepancies in salary, but it’s difficult to understand why an unknown spinner like Murugan Ashwin went for more than $600,000 while Martin Guptill, whose ODI strike rate since the start of 2015 is 96.5 and in T20s is 142.2, went unsold.

    Admittedly, Guptill’s record in India is not good, but when a local lad like Ashwin with a grand total of six domestic T20 games under his belt gets that kind of cash, you can’t help but feel perplexed.

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