Top Spin By Suni For LankaWeb Sports

Aug.21st 2010
The recent comments by former cricketing great Arjuna RanatungaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ about Sri Lanka Cricket being the laughing stock of the world seems pretty close to the truth in almost every perspective he has touched on relative to the SurajƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Randiva incident as it porrtays the Sri Lanka Cricket Board as a bunch of subservient and misguided nincompoops led by the big headed Aravinda de Silva who despite his track record as a wonderful player does not seem to have the wherewithal to make decisions in keeping with his status as the head of management and seems to haveƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  blundered his way into the path of a barrage of scathing criticism from manyƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  discerning cricketing analysts.
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This incident where Randiva bowled a no ballƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  to Indian batsman VirenderShewag sitting on 99 on the direction of one of his senior playersƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  on the field which was clearly caught on audio( in Sinhala) and even observed by commentator Tony Greig was no breach of ICC rules nor was it a punishable offence which was even overlooked by the match referee Hurst whereas the SLCB authorities jumped the gun to kiss Indian ass, forced Randiva to apologize to Shewag and made a big deal of it which was a shameful demoralisation ofƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ a brilliant young Sri Lankan cricketer coerced into his first act of gamesmanship by one of his senior players and something which should have been overlooked with perhaps a pep talk after the game was over.
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Cricket as much asƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ it being competitiveƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ is primarily a gentlemen’s sport indeed but taking into consideration the aspect of gamesmanship many teams resort to and have done so over the years this incident is a mere example of a team wanting to deny someone a century whether through gamesmanship or not and absolutely nothing wrong beyand the call of gentlemanliness and to deny a player his match fee and suspend him from the next game is a clear cut example of cockamanie ignorance as the means to justify the action was never posted as illegitimate by the authorities namely the ICC so Aravinda de Silva and his boys need to re-think their decisions in the future as they will continue to bring jeers and catcalls from the cricketing public each time they resort to such ludicrous actions.
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ArjunaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Ranatunga has analysed the situation perfectly in his capacity as a former revered and respected captain of Sri Lanka probably the best ever and to those who throw brickbats at him based on his political leanings it needs to be said “shame on you” as you are typifying a Sri Lankan mentality of dragging down a person for being a messenger rather than criticising the message in a manner demoralising decorum!
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Virender Shewag being denied a century throughƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  legitimate means is of no consequence to punishment and the sheer brilliance of the move needs to be acolladed and all the privileges denied Suraj Randiva needs to be restored on the basis that he has done nothing wrong, borne the brunt of SLCB needlessly due mostly to paranoia and myopia on the part of its leadership and the incident put to rest as after all the young man did apologise to Shewag and the hooing and haaing of Sri lankan Cricket totally unnecssary!
Bravo Arjuna For your astute wisdom in the input you have thrown into this matter where you would probably have made a much better head of Sri lankan cricket than its present incumbent who seems to love rollercoasting from the sublime to the ridiculous!