The 90th Battle of Maroons is around the corner. This encounter is between the two leading Buddhist schools, and there was a time not so far back that these two schools in the vicinity of Maradana produced many National caps which would have made all the other leading Colombo schools blush.
Mentioning about the last Test victory we had against South Africa and Kusal Perera’s heroics, he mentioned that it was a turning point for Sri Lanka to come out of the rut that we have fallen into. From what he heard he opined that there was no team work and internal clashes with wives of leading cricketers getting into the fray.
Bandula mentioned that the management of the team should be responsible for all these misgivings. What were they doing when clashes between the players were taking place he lamented?
Bandula went on and stated that if more than one person was involved that constituted a team, and dedication, discipline and teamwork was essential for success. Referring to the last win we had in the Test Match in Durban he was full of praise for both Kusal and Vishwa Fernando who never flinched against the battery of South African pacemen. Bandula was proud of the way Vishwa played, he had aggro in him and he never flinched. We need tough guys who can give as good as it takes.
Bandula reminisced that the very first Test was played exactly thirty years ago. Then they didn’t have a coach or a manager, senior players like Asantha de Mel, Duleep Mendis et al gave encouragement to the youngsters, there was team work and discipline, of course they lost the match in 4 days. The reason been there was a collapse after Bandula lost his wicket and John Emburey the off spinner ran through the side, Bandula still felt guilty about giving his wicket away. In spite of losing what they wanted to show was that they deserved to be a Test playing nation. Bangladesh had to wait in the wings for 6 to 7 years.
TRACK RECORD
We had a good track record, Bandula noted, we won the World Cup in 1996, won the T20 in 2014 under Lasith Malinga’s captaincy and reached 4 World Cup finals. In comparison Bandula was amazed about the depth Sri Lanka cricket had delved into and stated that when the head is rotten the body cannot be right. Bandula saw that certain people up above were working to their own agendas which was detrimental to our cricket.
SCHOOL CRICKET COACHES
In his days schools had outstanding coaches, Nalanda had Gerry Gooneratne who fine-tuned the players and Nelson Mendis instilled disciplined into them. Ananda had P.W. Perera, Dhanasiri Weerasinghe and Anura Polonowita. Mahinda and St Anthony’s too had good coaches.
According to Bandula there weren’t many players coming into the national team from schools eg. Arjuna Ranatunga, Anura Ranasinghe, Asanka Gurusinha, Roshan Mahanama, Ranjan Madugalle, Sanjeeva Ranatunga and said the present day coaches were the culprits. Bandula has observed that in school matches coaches are walking around the boundary lines instructing the captain and the captain looking at the coach, a laughable situation indeed.
WARNAPURA’S SOLUTION TO SCHOOL CRICKET
He mentioned that incentives should be given to not only players but coaches who found talent in them when they were raw. He also stated an example that Dinesh Chandimal learnt his rudiments of cricket at Dharmasoka College Ambalangoda and that coach also should be duly rewarded handsomely not only in that school but all outstation schools. Bandula noted that the apex body is spending enough money on tamasha’s, and ‘catchers’ going on tours and so on, so why not channel that money in the right direction like giving incentives to outstation players and coaches.
The rising ball was the bane of our top batsmen in the recent past and in the recent Test in Durban which was won miraculously due to a crackerjack knock by Kusal Janith Perera ably supported by Dhananjaya de Silva and Vishwa Fernando, our batsmen were given a bitter dose of short pitched balls most of them were clueless. Bandula was quick to point out that Laddie Outschroon, a former Worcestershire player who was on a coaching stint here for six months taught him how to avoid the rising ball. He pointed out that Aravinda De Silva the best bat produced by Sri Lanka always took them on with hooks and pulls and also mentioned that Anura Tennekoon too dealt with the rising delivery well.
(to be continued)
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