Top Spin By Suni for LankaWeb

 It is sad and disgusting to watch our National Cricket Team get beaten to a pulp by a team of Pakistanis who are pretty good players nonetheless but not that powerful albeit with many new players who have beaten the Sri Lankans comprehensively on their own turf which is all the more distressing and somewhat unfathomable.

 The match was played on a familiar home ground the SSC. All  or most  members of the Sri Lanka national cricket team are familiar with the  quality of the SSC wicket, having over the years played innumerable  times during local tournaments before being picked to the national  squad.

 It is a temperamental wicket indeed which has a few early terrors but  eases off as the game progresses.You play out the first session with  the devil in it and the wicket plays perfectly thereafter favouring  the team that probably bowls first by all accounts as was the case  here but no excuse for the hosts to get bowled out for a paltry first  innings score and then get bundled out a second time in similar  fashion while allowing the Pakistanis to pile  up a huge total with  missed chances and lose by innings and over 200 runs which is truly a  pathetic display by a side with many brilliant players now hanging  their heads in shame and ruefully viewing the debacle of missed  chances, woeful batting and the humiliation of it all.

 Having won the toss the captain elected to bat first  followed by a  veritable disaster where players like Angelo Mathews, Kusal Mendis and  Dinesh Chandimal woefully fell to the Pakistani swing and spin attack,  We could not but recall the feats of Kumar Sangakkara. Mahela  Jayawardena, Arjuna Ranatunga, Marvan Atapattu, Hashan Tillakaratne,  Aravinda De Silva, Muttiah Muralidaran and Co. the payers of yore who  tamed attacks similar to the present Pakistanis and sent them packing  instead of which it was the Sri Lankans who were wrapped up and  bundled out before a disbelieving packed house of spectators>  It was probably a myth that  we the spectators  were not afraid or> disillusioned that such an event would ever take place on home turf  despite the eventuality and that our bowlers would be able to exploit  the conditions much better than the Pakistanis had done. Soon we would  expect  see a procession of Pakistani batsmen walk from the pavilion  to the center and back again to the pavilion! Really? Guess it was Vice Versa!!

 Instead, we witnessed the Pakistani batsmen treat our bowlers with  complete disdain. A rookie Pakistani batsman scored an unbeaten double  century, another a century, and two others, half-centuries. The  Pakistani skipper was so sure he could wrap up the series despite  threatening rain, that he did not even bother to declare the innings> closed until his fourth batsman reached his half-century.

 That really was rubbing it  in was it not ? one might ask

 An exasperated quote by a writer said “They played our bowlers with  such ease, one would have believed they were playing against, perhaps  one of our weaker school elevens. Our fielding did not help either.

 When we saw a bowler drop a catch off his own bowling, in our mind’s  eye we were taken back, to the fielding exploits of Muttiah  Muralitharan catching off his own bowling or the brilliance of a  Roshan Mahanama in any part of the field.

 We hung our heads in sadness for days gone by  Not too long ago at the ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of our  World Cup triumph- our World Cup-winning captain spoke of corruption  in cricket. He urged the then Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, that  unless action was taken to address burning issues in the sport,  cricket would suffer further.

 Sadly, it appears we have kept our date with destiny.” end of quote

It may interest you to know that the issue of alleged corruption at  the highest level in cricket was  recently raised in Parliament.The  cricketing hierarchy days later, called a press conference to ‘clear’

 its name.

 However, the very next day the media reported that the Auditor General  himself speaking on Sri Lanka Cricket’s claimed its hands were clean,  saying the National Audit Office stood by its draft report on Sri  Lanka’s tour of Australia for the 2022 T-20 World Cup.Is this some  kind of joke or a cover up?

 Whatever the charges, there are also questions over selection to the  national team and why particular players of international repute fail  to find a selection to the national team.

 One such player who keeps failing to get selected to the national team  is one who had scored a test hundred on debut and has scored five more  half-centuries in nine tests, according to media reports.

 Could it be that not belonging to a particular cricket club or not having ‘the right connections’ plays an important role in the eyes of  national selectors? Or is it sheer favoritism,cronyism and jingoism or  could  it be all of these!!You make your pick!

 The alarming reality based on all the shortcomings of Sri Lanka  Cricket – the administrative body is that if alleged corruption and  the ungainly mess it is in presently are not referred to a more  capable body of administrators and cleaned up quickly through very  stringent corrective measures, Sri Lanka Cricket may be in danger of  a similar fate as some of our other sporting groups like Rugby and  Soccer who were suspended by International Governing Bodies and the  glory of Sri Lanka Cricket could sadly be a thing of the past.

 It would indeed be a sad case of Sri Lanka Cricket being in danger of  crumbling!!