{"id":85336,"date":"2019-02-04T22:47:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T04:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=85336"},"modified":"2019-02-04T14:16:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T21:16:22","slug":"downward-spiral-in-cricket-needs-immediate-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/02\/04\/downward-spiral-in-cricket-needs-immediate-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"Downward Spiral In Cricket Needs Immediate Attention."},"content":{"rendered":"

Top spin by Suni<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

4th Feb 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

In any sport where motivation perhaps is the key word, cricket being no exception, in Sri Lanka cricket, apart from the enthusiasm to secure positions in the forthcoming elections for obvious reasons there seems little else towards correcting the downward spiral the present Test squad seems to be hurtling into.<\/p>\n

It is frustrating to watch the many areas the team needs supplementing in and foremost the captaincy appears to be painfully lacking in the motivation that previous leaders have shown. So it is no surprise that the Lankans have been subjugated, intimidated and virtually demoralised as a team after the Indian and Australian Series’ where India was outstanding and the Sri Lankans are now heading towards further disaster in South Africaat the hands of their top order pacies\u00a0 probably smacking their lips awaiting their arrival. Synonymously the captain Chandimal only seems to have wayward rhetoric and meaningless jargon about how to recover from the problems rather than leading by example.In all probabilities he would perform better if he was replaced by someone more capable and better equipped to lead.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka have provided platforms for Australia to recover from their ” Indian drubbing ” and create unprecedented entries into the record books simply through ineptitude, lack of application or being\u00a0 categorically unfit to play at the highest level of the game and has brought to discredit what their memorable predecessors did in the recent past\u00a0 and have now been reduced to a team of disoriented players and if there were levels of relegation similar to soccer and other sports league in all probabilities they would surely be at the lowest .<\/p>\n

History has proved that aggressive fast bowling was a key factor towards winning matches but it has also proved that there have been batsmen capable of countering and withstanding its perils in scintillating fashion but perhaps in the modern game, circumstances and conditions may be different and Australia has proved its effectiveness by brutally demoralizing Sri Lanka and sent them to the canvass in a manner of speaking. It is an issue which needs immediate attention where all things considered the team is heading for dire straits unless remedied.<\/p>\n

Areas which need remedying appear to be – a captain who motivates and strengthens the team by example and being judicious, forthright and perceptive in decision making. Conditioning, both physical and psychological fitness and the capacity to play the rising ball without offering one’s helmet\u00a0 and body armour as buffers and misjudging the trajectories and bounce of a rising ball\u00a0 as Karunaratne and Perera did at Canberra ending up in hospital where the bat as a defensive and offnesive weapon seemed to have been pre-empted through hesitance and indecision. (The ICC probably needs to implement more stringent rules about the\u00a0 use and misuse of the bouncer beyond what already exists as indiscriminate bouncing these days seems rampant.)<\/p>\n

The overall quality of players selected on performance and merit rather than on favouritism needs prioritizing as in the past and have been been winners not losers with tails between their legs which is gut wrenching for the fans and for the morale of Sri Lanka cricket in general.<\/p>\n

Hopefully the downward spiral the team is in will be corrected before total disaster strikes this near to the World Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Top spin by Suni 4th Feb 2019 In any sport where motivation perhaps is the key word, cricket being no exception, in Sri Lanka cricket, apart from the enthusiasm to secure positions in the forthcoming elections for obvious reasons there seems little else towards correcting the downward spiral the present Test squad seems to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunil-kumar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}