{"id":68054,"date":"2021-07-02T02:37:23","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T02:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=68054"},"modified":"2021-07-02T02:38:58","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T02:38:58","slug":"this-is-not-a-blip-sri-lankan-game-is-in-a-mess-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/this-is-not-a-blip-sri-lankan-game-is-in-a-mess-2\/","title":{"rendered":"This is not a blip: Sri Lankan game is in a mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is not a blip: Sri Lankan game is in a mess<\/span><\/h1>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

Source:-thetimes.co.uk<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

After a moment of high comedy during Sri Lanka\u2019s innings at Durham, when the running between the wickets resembled a Laurel and Hardy slapstick routine, the cameras panned to Mickey Arthur. Hands on hips, lips curled, Sri Lanka\u2019s coach looked momentarily like a temping schoolteacher put in charge of a class he did not recognise nor could control. Another fine mess, he seemed to be thinking, or, to put it more bluntly, in today\u2019s lingo: \u201cWTAF?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In mid-innings confusion during the first ODI against England, Chamika Karunaratne and Binura Fernando, two wet-behind-the-ears internationals, found themselves at the same end. A bullet throw from Liam Livingstone in the deep burst through Jonny Bairstow\u2019s gloves, to give rise to a rush to see who could win the\u00a0scramble to the non-striker\u2019s end first. It was just one snapshot of a difficult day, for sure, but it encapsulated the decline in the basics of a team once renowned for setting trends and standards in cricket.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Arthur is a well-travelled, well-respected coach. From South Africa to Australia to Pakistan and now to Sri Lanka, via some franchised leagues, he has seen just about everything cricket has to offer. He is an optimist, one of the game\u2019s most ebullient characters, who loves the rough and tumble of the dressing room. No job too small; no mess too big.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s totals have been overhauled easily in three one-day matches by England \u2014 and when it was the touring side\u2019s turn to chase 181 in the third T20 at the Ageas Bowl, they were skittled for 91<\/span><\/div>\n
LINDSEY PARNABY\/AFP<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

One feels for him, though, given the scale of his present challenge: all cricketing nations go through cycles, peaks and troughs that fix themselves over time, but the extent of Sri Lanka\u2019s decline is deeply worrying.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most recently updated World Super League table, the process by which qualification for the 2023 World Cup is decided, makes for grim reading. Sri Lanka sit bottom of the 13 teams, behind Afghanistan, Netherlands, Ireland and Zimbabwe, having won only one match. Although this cycle is in its early days, on present form they will not qualify automatically. In the recently concluded World Test Championship, Sri Lanka finished seventh out of nine, with only West Indies and Bangladesh below them.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ICC rankings reflect a longer period of time, pre-Covid, and are therefore a more reasonable assessment of a team\u2019s standing. Sri Lanka are eighth in Tests and T20s and ninth in ODIs. The decline of a team that once bossed ICC events, competing in five finals between 2007 and 2014, has been dramatic and nothing we have seen in the past two weeks \u2014 Sri Lanka lost the T20 series 3-0 to England before being well beaten in that first ODI on Tuesday \u2014 suggests those positions are misplaced. It has looked one of the least competitive teams to come here for some time.<\/span><\/p>\n

That this year is an anniversary of the greatest moment in Sri Lanka\u2019s cricketing history offers context into the present woes. On a steamy night in Lahore 25 years ago they claimed the World Cup by hammering Australia, as they had most other teams in that tournament. The winning runs were scored by the architect of that triumph, Arjuna Ranatunga, who was embraced immediately by the non-striker, Aravinda de Silva, a batsman of magical gifts of touch and timing.<\/span><\/p>\n

De Silva is head of a technical advisory committee that includes another member of that famous win, Muttiah Muralitharan, the champion off spinner. In the commentary box a few days earlier, another member of the committee, Kumar Sangakkara, was left momentarily speechless \u2014 a rare state of being \u2014 when asked whether these were the best players the country could produce.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were other ghosts of that World Cup win in Durham this week. Romesh Kaluwitharana, now a little more thickset than the whip-thin wicketkeeper who dazzled at the top of the order with Sanath Jayasuriya, is a selector. Chaminda Vaas, the outstanding left-arm swing bowler, is the bowling coach. At least, unlike the batting coach, Grant Flower, he has some raw materials to work with. Wanindu Hasaranga, the leg spinner, and Dushmantha Chameera, the fast bowler, are good prospects.<\/span><\/p>\n

The standard of batting in the T20s and opening ODI, though, was really poor. It was not helped in Durham by the banishment of three established players \u2014 Niroshan Dickwella, Kusal Mendis and Danushka Gunathilaka \u2014 who had broken the team\u2019s Covid protocols. If it seemed, on the face of things, a harsh punishment to send them home, it was a reflection on the decline in general discipline over the past few years. From his days as Australia coach, Arthur is no stranger to a \u201cline in the sand\u201d moment, and this, for Sri Lanka, seemed to be it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka were thrilling and innovative en route to becoming world champions in 1996, as our correspondent found out in the quarter-final<\/span><\/div>\n
JOHN GILES\/PA<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

It resulted in a threadbare team in Durham, with the captain, Kusal Perera, the only man to have played more than 30 ODIs. The turnover of players and captains has been high, as it tends to be in periods of struggle. Before the T20 series, Sri Lanka had used 25 players in the previous dozen matches. The former England coach, Duncan Fletcher, would talk of a \u201ccritical mass\u201d of senior players, essential to the functioning of any successful international team, and there is little evidence of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are deeper problems. Tom Moody, recently installed as the director of cricket, has spoken of the need to reform a domestic structure based around 24 first-class teams (increased from ten, five years ago) that has resulted in talent being spread too thinly. \u201cIt is not a system that supports excellence,\u201d Moody said after taking up the job and making recommendations for a fundamental overhaul. \u201cOnce you provide a system that encourages excellence, you allow talent \u2014 which this country is not short of \u2014 to thrive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

Administration of the game seems dysfunctional and sclerotic. A sport that is a passport for recognition, meaning and money may find itself vulnerable to all kinds of birds of prey, with a number of investigations into corruption in the past few years by the ICC involving Sri Lanka. Three years ago, the sports minister was quoted as saying the ICC viewed administration of the game in the country as \u201ccorrupt from top to bottom\u201d. In 2019, the ICC\u2019s anti-corruption unit offered an amnesty in response to the specific challenges faced there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the modern-day problems, it would be easy to forget that passion for the sport continues, in streets, schools, colleges and clubs. In the novel\u00a0Chinaman<\/i>, Shehan Karunatilaka, the Sri Lankan author, muses on the existential nature of sport. Cricketers, he thinks, cannot do anything of practical value but they can bring an entire nation to its feet for a moment in time \u2014 as our footballers are doing now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s players have managed that before, too; the hope is they will be able to do it again.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is not a blip: Sri Lankan game is in a mess Source:-thetimes.co.uk After a moment of high comedy during Sri Lanka\u2019s innings at Durham, when the running between the wickets resembled a Laurel and Hardy slapstick routine, the cameras panned to Mickey Arthur. Hands on hips, lips curled, Sri Lanka\u2019s coach looked momentarily like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":68056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1560],"tags":[35016,35585,5582,35586,1851],"class_list":{"0":"post-68054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-aside","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-articles","8":"category-cricket-news","9":"tag-chamika-karunaratne","10":"tag-icc","11":"tag-kusal-perera","12":"tag-shehan-karunatilaka","13":"tag-sri-lanka-cricket","14":"post_format-post-format-aside"},"yoast_head":"\nThis is not a blip: Sri Lankan game is in a mess - eLanka<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After a moment of high comedy during Sri Lanka\u2019s innings at Durham, when the running between the wickets resembled a Laurel and Hardy slapstick routine, the cameras panned to Mickey Arthur. Hands on hips, lips curled, Sri Lanka\u2019s coach looked momentarily like a temping schoolteacher put in charge of a class he did not recognise nor could control. Another fine mess, he seemed to be thinking, or, to put it more bluntly, in today\u2019s lingo: \u201cWTAF?\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This is not a blip: Sri Lankan game is in a mess\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After a moment of high comedy during Sri Lanka\u2019s innings at Durham, when the running between the wickets resembled a Laurel and Hardy slapstick routine, the cameras panned to Mickey Arthur. 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