Ceylon Today Editorial

Sri Lanka adopting pace and bounce is a plus

19 November 2016

Sri Lanka showed its weakness playing against the faster West Indian bowlers, on the same wicket, that they thrashed the Zimbabwe bowlers only a week ago. The Sri Lanka team without their regular batters looked so ordinary against an average pace attack lacking experience except Holder. Holder getting bounce on the Harare wicket was not used to that level by the slow medium pacers of Zimbabwe playing those three Test matches, recently. The wicket held bounce and was seen by the way it was exploited even by Rangana Herath as the wicket grew older.

Sri Lanka was always known to be a little short of experience playing genuine pace that was used to the limit when Australia played them, especially, at home. The fact has been that any batsman however much runs he accumulated, there was reluctance to accept that being good enough to prove his worth as a world class bat, unless he made runs internationally.

England, Australia, West Indies, South Africa and New Zealand who had already been in international cricket not only had proven their abilities in batsmanship but also taken up to making bouncy wickets that were fast bowler savvy. It may have been the fact that they were better at producing fast bowlers as against a good spin attack. Left and right arm or leg spin and off spin bowlers were not their specialty though at times they had them.

Fast bowling in comparison to spin is an easier activity to get used to; fast bowlers had to know how to use the pitch to their advantage. This was done bowling wicket to wicket length and line. Spinners had much more to do because they were more prone to waver and become erratic. Leg spin was a more difficult thing to be good at compared to off spin. Off spin was, and as much a difficult art to be a master of.

Spin was the only way the ball was delivered in those early years of rolling the ball along the ground. Then the new invention was the lob. During the period of underarm bowling the lob was used with a round arm action and the ball never touching the pitch and was found to be a mystery ball then. Lobbing the ball although outdated now is still used, though not by the same name; it is no longer a mystery ball but used to surprise batters giving more air or flight to get more bounce off the wicket. During the famous 1950s there were two famous West Indian spinners who made all the difference to spin bowling. They were Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine who played havoc with England in that Test series that was the first such to be won by the Windies against England. It even went onto create the famous 'cricket lovely cricket' calypso which gained world fame in that period.

Ever since then the Indians and Pakistanis have proved that spin bowling has been a great strength with their armoury in Test cricket. They even began to use it to advantage when playing at home, either India or Pakistan. Teams that were already relying on fast bowling soon were looking into the possibility of spin, and they began to have faith in leg spin over off spin. That may have been because leg spin still had more mystery than off spinners did. The googly became the specialty in the armoury of leg spinners and used to advantage.

Saqlain and Muralitharan had advantage over Shane Warne with the new found mystery ball known as the Doosra. Even without the Doosra Warne still kept up his good work getting into a battle with Muralitharan in the race to be the first to reach the 500 scalp mark. It was won by Muralitharan and critics went on a ravage saying though Sri Lanka played teams such as Bangladesh regularly Australia did not.

However, to crush any good sub continental batting side that is used to slow wickets it is the fast bowler who has bounce off the wicket that is still required to win matches. Especially, on those bouncy fast paced wickets prepared in England, Australia, West Indies, South Africa and New Zealand who prefer them over slow and easy paced ones helping spin attacks. So, Sri Lanka will have to start something soon before going to South Africa, who, relish playing on bouncy fast paced wickets and to prove it, even now have the Aussie batters reeling on those.

Daily News Editorial

Tackling dengue

19 November 2016

Dengue, the dreaded mosquito borne disease, has seen a dramatic rise this year with more than 45,000 cases reported so far this year, including 14,000 from Colombo District alone. This is in sharp contrast to the 29,000 cases reported last year. More than 60 deaths have been reported. This is an alarming situation by any yardstick.

While the present rainy weather is generally conducive to mosquito breeding, it is still possible to eliminate breeding grounds if several simple guidelines are followed. Prevention is always better than cure. Unfortunately, many Government institutions including schools and hospitals and local bodies themselves have been found wanting in that department. Health authorities who inspected 120 schools during the recently completed two day intensive dengue control programme found 48 schools in the Colombo district alone with mosquito larvae. Health authorities also found 48 state institutions out of 134, with mosquito larvae. At the end of the programme the inspectors searched 12,058 premises and took legal action against 316 premises.

This is a black mark on a country that recently became only the second in South Asia after the Maldives to have eliminated malaria, which still claims millions of lives worldwide. Sri Lanka has been described as a role model for all other developing nations in this regard – dengue infects more than 350 million people and kills 25,000 across the globe each year. However, the rapid spread of dengue throughout the island could negate these achievements unless urgent preventive measures are taken. This is a task that the Government alone cannot accomplish, without the fullest public support.

All households should strive to keep their homes and compounds free of any possible breeding grounds for mosquitoes that are vectors for many other diseases such as filaria, chikungunya and Zika. This does not cost any money and only a little time is needed to spruce up one’s home and garden. For example, residents should make sure that water is not stagnating in surrounding areas or in unused tyres, water containers, potted plants, AC trays, pot holes, flower vases or water tanks. Some of the preventive steps, such as getting a mosquito net, does cost some money but is a worthwhile investment in the long run. Be aware that some mosquito repellants such as coils could have other health implications, so look for natural repellants. Doctors also say that wearing light coloured, fully sleeved clothing also helps keeps the mosquitoes at bay.

Another major impediment to controlling dengue is that many persons who contract dengue do not seek medical advice and treatment fast enough, until it is too late. Doctors advise that persons who suffer from any kind of fever for more than two days should seek immediate medical treatment from a qualified doctor or a State hospital. This gives doctors ample time to set the patient on the path to recovery if it is indeed dengue. If it is not dengue, the patient can be treated for whatever disease associated with his or her symptoms. In the initial stages of the fever before any diagnosis, it is important not to take any medication for fever except paracetamol. Other medications can lead to serious complications which can have fatal consequences. As with most other diseases, timely diagnosis and early treatment can save lives that would otherwise be consumed by dengue.

Scientists are also racing to test a new dengue vaccine, which has the potential to save a lot of lives in our region. Dengvaxia, the world’s first dengue vaccine (manufactured by Sonafi Pasteur) was rolled out recently, though several other competing vaccines are on the horizon. The Philippines and Brazil have already introduced public vaccination programmes in specific areas or populations. The vaccine is designed to induce an immune response against each of the four dengue viruses, but not to cause the disease itself. The immune response results in antibodies capable of fighting dengue infections. Sri Lankan Aravinda de Silva, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine, is leading efforts to develop a nanoparticle based dengue vaccine which will work somewhat differently.

Sri Lanka is often cited as a “vaccination success story” where most childhood diseases have been eliminated or minimized as a result of an islandwide vaccination programme. These vaccination campaigns continued even during the height of the conflict. Sri Lankans have a generally optimistic attitude towards vaccination and a dengue vaccine will no doubt be readily accepted here. The authorities should work with the relevant parties including the World Health Organisation (WHO) to launch this vaccine here in due course.

However, even if a vaccine is introduced we cannot be complacent. It is only a part of the prevention chain. It would be suicidal to abandon the other preventive measures such as keeping our premises clean, thinking that a vaccine would end the problem. Addressing dengue must remain a collective responsibility of the whole society.

The Island Editorial

A show in poor taste

19 November 2016

 

Yesterday’s newspapers carried a handout picture, made available by the President’s Office, of President Maithripala Sirisena with a schoolboy who had hacked into the presidential website in August. One did not know whether to laugh or cry on seeing that photo. That propaganda stunt, in our book, did not yield the desired result; it was in bad taste.

Police arrested the teenage hacker in record time. We suggested in this space that in a country where even terrorists were being pardoned the schoolboy should not be treated like a criminal though he had been on the wrong side of the law. We pointed out that President Sirisena had even made a grand show of pardoning an LTTE cadre who plotted to kill him while he was a minister in the Rajapaksa government. The President, a caring father himself, to his credit, rightly showed clemency to the schoolboy. His action warmed the cockles of many a heart.

But, Thursday’s show of benevolence at the Presidential Secretariat sent out the wrong message to the youth. For, the other young cyber freaks with a bent for hacking may think the best way to receive gifts from the President is to hack into his website.

President Sirisena has unflinchingly rewarded political rejects who lost the last general election with National List slots and even cabinet posts. They are now doing political hack jobs for him as is evident from their tirades against his bêtes noires. So, the President may not have seen anything wrong in inviting the young hacker and presenting him with a gift besides posing for a picture with him. But, in so doing he has given that teenager the same treatment as the student who behave in an exemplary manner, excel at highly competitive examinations and are invited to the President’s House in recognition of their outstanding performance.

We hope the President’s website won’t attract more teenage hackers seeking publicity.

Brouhaha over a chair

An MP has made an issue of an engineer sitting on the Speaker’s chair while the House was being cleaned recently. Claiming that an affront has been caused not only to the Speaker but also the entire nation, the lawmaker has called for action against the ‘culprit’.

We thought it was the MPs misbehaving in the House who really insulted the Speaker and brought the national legislature as well as the country into disrepute. Once a group of MPs exchanged blows and removed some important documents from the Speaker’s table during a stormy session. W. J. M. Lokubandara, who was the Speaker at that time, minced no words when he said what he had witnessed in the House on that day was terrorism!

Incumbent Speaker Karu Jayasuriya is of excellent temperament, nay, he is amiability personified. But, he also saw red recently when some unruly MPs ignored his repeated calls for order during a commotion in the House; he urged them ‘not to do in a dining hall what they did in a toilet’.

In some western democracies, people are free to sit in lawmakers’ chairs when parliaments are not in session. But, in this country even an MP’s buttocks are covered by parliamentary privileges. So, the engineer concerned, being a member of the parliament staff, should have known better. Some people get into trouble because of their tongues, but here is a case of an educated, intelligent man having got into hot water because of his derriere!

Why the aforesaid engineer ever wanted to sit in Parliament defies comprehension. If he had really wanted to do so, he could have dropped out of school and taken to politics like most of the present-day MPs; many of them haven’t even passed the GCE O/L examination. Blessed with a mathematical mind, he could easily have become a calculating politician and gone places. Had he done so without taking the trouble of studying hard and completing his higher studies, he would have been able to amass a great deal of wealth through illegal means and become an MP or even the Prime Minister or the President.