Another crushing Test series defeat this time at the hands of the Australians only added to the mounting woes of the Sri Lanka cricket team that seems to be getting nowhere with lack of direction, purpose and discipline. On this occasion our cricketers were undone by the bounce and pace of the Australian pitches and mounting injuries to our fast bowlers didn’t help our cause either. Chairman of selectors Ashantha de Mel was quick to point out that problems the national team are encountering abroad are due to the shortsightedness of the cricket administration.
“I was watching some of the domestic club matches and the fast bowlers are bowling only about 4-5 overs so how can they bowl 20 overs in a Test match,” questioned De Mel. “When we were looking for fast bowlers to replace the injured we found out that even clubs like NCC are opening the bowling with spinners. There was a boy we were looking at Mohamed Siraj. The last match he played he was given only two overs to bowl. He had gone for a few runs in those overs and after that he didn’t bowl. Unless the bowlers are given a heavy workload at home how can they be fit to bowl in a Test? It has to be corrected from the domestic level.”
“India played four Test matches and not a single fast bowler broke down, we played two Tests and four bowlers broke down. Out of the five fast bowlers we sent four got injured and we bowled in only one innings at the Gabba,” pointed out De Mel. Nuwan Pradeep, Lahiru Kumara, Dushmantha Chameera and Suranga Lakmal were the bowlers on the injured list.
Another area that De Mel was critical of was the type of pitches prepared in domestic cricket. “The pitches prepared domestically are slow and low and it is no surprise our batsmen struggle when they come up against fast and bouncy tracks. When you are facing bowlers at 125-130kmh in Sri Lanka with no bounce and when you go and face bowlers bowling at you at 150plus kmh and he is well over six feet in height on bouncy pitches it’s a different ball game altogether.
“We have to prepare well and learn so that we can play outside Sri Lanka. Playing in Sri Lanka with four spinners and no fast bowler is not going to improve our cricket long term. Even despite preparing turning pitches we lost the Test series at home to England 3-0. The normal thinking that you should prepare wickets to suit the home side’s bowling strength didn’t quite work with England because their spinners got more wickets than ours. We played one fast bowler in one Test and he didn’t bowl even four overs. So how are you going to expect them to come and bowl 20 overs in a Test match?
“The reason why India is doing well is they made a conscientious effort to improve their domestic wickets. Those days the Indian batsmen never played the short ball well, but today players like Kohli and Sharma and all are massacring the short bowling.
“We are preparing low slow wickets which the coaches want. Unless Sri Lanka Cricket whoever comes into power is able to take strong decisions we are not going to go and improve.”
De Mel expressed surprise that Sri Lanka had not requested for a practice game ahead of the three-Test series against South Africa starting later this month.
“The Lankan team is leaving for South Africa from Australia today or tomorrow and they are going to be there for seven days prior to the first Test match but they are not playing a single practice game. I can’t understand the team management’s thinking. When England comes to Sri Lanka they want about 2-3 warm-up matches. South Africa is about 6000 feet above sea level and the air is thin and breathing is different. With less oxygen you’ve got to get used to those conditions and bowl. Sadly there is nothing we could do. When we found out we tried to make a change but Cricket South Africa said that we hadn’t requested for any matches and they cannot oblige.
“We have to prepare and plan well, those are things that we are not doing. When you don’t follow these procedures after a while the results start to show up. We have no plan to improve the cricket. We are looking at short term winning in Sri Lanka. We had spinners like Rangana Herath and Akila Dananjaya but those options are also reduced now.”
De Mel was highly critical of giving the head coach wide ranging powers which made the national selectors helpless when the team was on tour.
“The batting order is not in our hands it is done by the coach. Kusal Mendis who was batting at 4 was demoted to 5 in the second innings of the second Test and they brought Niroshan Dickwella who was batting at 7 to 4. My thinking is certain players the coach is protecting moving them up and down the order. Everybody must be treated equally. We must have a regular set of batsmen for 3, 4 and 5,” said De Mel.
“What a big problem we had with the team management to get Lahiru Thirimanne included in the squad. We insisted on sending Thirimanne although they didn’t want him. He is the only guy who batted in Australia the longest. Every game he batted 2-3 hours that is what you expect from your opening batsman. Actually Thirimanne is not an opener he is a batsman who should bat at 3.
“We had quite a difficult task in trying to get thing sorted out because we were not given the chance to send a selector on tour because all that was done by the coach. To get Kusal Perera to bat at 5 there was resistance. There are a lot of problems in our team selections. Although we select and send 17 players the final 11 according to the letter given by SLC is decided by the coach.
“Previously the coach had no powers to select teams because according to the SLC constitution the manager and the captain are the ones who can pick the side. They have given the coach all the powers. He is paid a fantastic amount and if he is selecting the players, the manager and the support staff coaches and still losing matches something has to be done seriously. There should be a performance clause in the contract. You cannot get paid for whatever the performance is. It is a terrible situation,” De Mel said.
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