Ceylon Today Editorial

SLC seems to have problems with selections

28 January 2017

There seems to be a void in the thinking of the members of the Sri Lankan cricket team. Are they all well informed about the rest of the cricketing world and happenings there? For such question to arise one noticeable oddity was the Sri Lankan fear of names of South African cricketers that were given extra space in newspapers. It is easy for scribes supporting South Africa, writing for their newspapers to promote the ingredient disliked by the opponents mostly to get the limelight. It can be very detrimental mostly when it is unknown quantity.

It is an important thing to be aware of the goings on around the sphere where one performs. When visiting overseas to play cricket it is important to get there early and acclimatize to conditions you will be faced with playing there. There will be the weather to think about, the greener pitches to get used to and mostly the men you are about to meet in those games that are to be played on conditions foreign to the visitors.

Think of visiting teams coming down to Sri Lanka and how they feel: They feel unsafe hearing of mystery spinners and the sort in the sub- continent. There was the time when the concept of Test cricket was only known to the Australians and the Englishmen. They both ruled wherever they played the game; it did not matter which foreign soil it was; cricket was home to them.

They knew the intricacies because they were the creators of those and it was easy to bulldoze opponents because they only had the answers. Being so, and being the party who knew what to look for in unknown conditions and whom to speak with to get answers to your questions they were at an advantage. If you look at visiting teams and whom they get close with, that is what is going on, collecting bits and pieces of information.

That is the easy way; others in the history of the game had to learn the hard way. They had to play matches and learn the answers from experience. Each of those countries took time to become champion sides compared to those mentioned above.

That was the situation that prevailed for a long time until the West Indies proved otherwise defeating England in 1950 and getting the better of the Australians in the 1960s. By 1970 the South Africans became the conquerors of the dominating Australians.

The game of cricket, as we all know, has now taken a turn towards another episode that has been rolling out since 1975. Since then the better tuned to Test matches have got a lesser demand promotionally whilst the shorter versions have been given more of a push for their commercial value.

Unlike playing Test cricket the shorter version does not give chances for revival while the game is in progress. So, either you get used to thinking on your feet, or perish not being in awareness. The Lankans who played so much cricket, under all sorts of conditions, starting with pol pithi and kaduru bola, seemed to have had this on their side. They have won both the ICC ODI (1996) and T20 (2011) World cups. Beaten at home by the Aussies, recently, in the shorter version after whitewashing them in the Tests, made the Lankans under rebuilding, to look not likely-winners of their next undertaking, the Tri-nation cup in Zimbabwe.

With the future undertakings with neighbouring South Africa in the horizon it would have given the Sri Lankans the confidence of getting to know conditions to some extent. But, of late the South African cricket which is also going through patches of a troubled cricket environment, and because of it, its complete outlook with the game was unknown. In the recently lost Test series the Sri Lankans were able to come on top with their performances but their lack of experience was showing to a greater extent. The lacking was not limited to the three disciplines and conditions only; there was the lack of being given the proper information. This was even more cause for some rethinking on the selection of players.

Even the South Africans are going through a selection problem both for the Test and shorter versions of the game. They had the lesser experienced side in the Tests, with even the master batsman Amla not looking himself. The century he and Duminy made were given away and the Sri Lankans need to be applauded for that not the South African batters. Sri Lanka was not in full awareness with handling the South African bowling and that caused them collapse. Had the proper selections been made with proper awareness the story would have been different as seen from their performance in the T20s. They have progressed tremendously these last few days with their thinking and performing.