{"id":95021,"date":"2019-11-10T16:16:56","date_gmt":"2019-11-10T23:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95021"},"modified":"2019-11-10T16:16:56","modified_gmt":"2019-11-10T23:16:56","slug":"why-senaka-weeraratna-should-get-due-recognition-for-the-drs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/10\/why-senaka-weeraratna-should-get-due-recognition-for-the-drs\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Senaka Weeraratna should get due recognition for the DRS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rohan Abeygunawardena Nugegoda <\/strong>Courtesy: Sunday Times (November 10, 2019)\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Senaka\nWeeraratna the Sri Lankan Lawyer who came out with the suggestion to introduce\na Decision Review System (DRS) to minimise umpiring errors in the middle, as\nfar back as 1997, has been fighting for due recognition for his contribution to\nthe game, for over 20 years. However, in spite of many requests and appeals\nmade by him to Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and the International Cricket Conference\n(ICC), he has not been successful in receiving the kind of acknowledgment that\nDuckworth and Lewis got for their contribution towards deciding the result on\nrain-affected Limited-Over games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a recent news item, he has appealed to one of the\ngreatest cricketers produced in this part of the world, Kumar Sangakkara, to\nhelp him on this matter. I am sure Kumar, being a 100% Sri Lankan, who knows\nthe benefits that would accrue to his country, would do everything possible as\nthe President of MCC, to help recognise this claim by Senaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senaka has also made representations to Prime Minister Ranil\nWickremesinghe, who has directed the Secretary of the Ministry of Sports (MoS),\nto take appropriate action, to get recognition for his work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cricket is the most popular sport in Sri Lanka. This is the only\nsport in which Sri Lanka became World champs twice- Winning ODI World Cup in\n1996 and T20 World Cup in 2014. The only other sport Sri Lanka produced a world\nchampion is in Billiards, when M.J.M. Lafir became World Champion in December\n1973, at World Amateur Billiards Championship held in Mumbai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1982, Sri Lanka was admitted to full membership of the ICC\nand awarded Test status, thanks to the efforts of then President of the Board\nof Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL), late Gamini Dissanayake. His\nefforts and how he set about achieving this task was vividly explained in an\narticle written by Sunil Thenabadu, published in the Sunday Times of October\n21, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inaugural Test was played at the Colombo Oval in February\n1982, against England, which Sri Lanka lost by 8 wickets. Sri Lanka toured\nPakistan in March 1982 and played 3 Test matches, of which Pakistan won 2 and 1\nwas drawn. Again in October 1985, Sri Lanka toured Pakistan, with the same\nresults. In the absence of neutral umpiring and\/or Senaka\u2019s DRS, there had been\nquite a few bad decisions by Pakistan umpires that went against Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pakistan\u2019s 1st tour of Sri Lanka, after the latter attained Test\nStatus, was in February 1986. This tour was nearly disrupted due to bad\numpiring by the Sri Lankan umpires. Imran Khan wrote in his book All Round\nView\u201d about this tour. He said, The result was an ugly series, where the main\nbone of contention was the quality of the umpiring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewed by Sidharth Monga, Imran said, We all agreed that\nthere was no point in continuing the tour. We drafted a statement to this\neffect, but General Zia [President of Pakistan] called me up and told me to\npersuade the boys to complete the tour.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time of this tour, the late Gamini Dissanayake was the\nPresident and the late P.I. Peiris (Cambridge Blue in cricket) was the Vice\nPresident of the BCCSL.  When the captain and the players were agitating\nfor a cancellation of the tour, the Pakistan manager contacted the officials of\ntheir Cricket Board. A senior official was sent to discuss with the Sri Lankan\nofficials to pullout the Pakistan team from the tour, of course,\ndiplomatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pakistani official, initially, discussed the matter with P.I.\nPeiris, and thereafter with the President. Nearly 3 hours of discussion did not\nprovide a favourable result. Gamini Dissanayake then called President J.R.\nJayewardene (JRJ) and briefed him on the situation and JRJ, himself a lover of\ncricket, invited them to his Ward Place residence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JRJ listened to both parties. And then quietly walked to the\nphone and dialed. When someone answered he said, Your Excellency, these 22\nfools in flannels, are trying to disrupt the good relations between our\ncountries. Therefore, I am ordering the Pakistan team to stay and get on with\nthe game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JRJ spoke for few more minutes and laughed. Then he turned to\nthe Pakistan Official and said Your President wishes to speak with you\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went over to the phone and only said Yes your excellency,\nYes,\u2026.yes\u201d, then came back and informed President JRJ that they will continue\nwith the tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a typical example of how bad decisions by the person of\nauthority, who is responsible for presiding over the game, from a neutral point\nof view, and making on-the-fly decisions that enforce the rules of the sport,\nincluding sportsmanship decisions such as ejection, make mistakes or biased\ndecisions, leading to unpleasant situations among the players and sport lovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is very little room now for such bad decisions, thanks to\nSenaka Weeraratna\u2019s brilliant idea of the players and field umpires appealing\nto the 3rd umpire when in doubt. As Sri Lankans, we should be proud of his\ncontribution to Cricket, which is like a second religion to a majority of Sri\nLankans. Besides, even in other sports, this concept is now practised. For\nexample, in Rugby, which is a very fast body contact game, where the chances of\nwrong decisions by the on field referee is extremely high, this concept is\nbeing practised since 2001. They call it Television Match Official (TMO). Many\ndecisions were changed by the TMO at the Rugby world cup this year and, as a\nresult, the best teams came to the semis and finals, without creating any doubt\nin the minds of the loyal supporters, spectators and those millions of Rugby\nfans watching on TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has failed so far to make representation\nto the ICC and obtain recognition for Senaka\u2019s concept, in spite of many\nappeals made by him. May I therefore, suggest that the SLC and the MoS\nSecretary work hand in hand with Kumar Sangakkara and help obtain the due\nrecognition for Senaka. This is an honour for Sri Lanka and will be a feather\nin SLC\u2019s cap!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rohan Abeygunawardena <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nugegoda<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rohan Abeygunawardena Nugegoda Courtesy: Sunday Times (November 10, 2019)\u00a0 Senaka Weeraratna the Sri Lankan Lawyer who came out with the suggestion to introduce a Decision Review System (DRS) to minimise umpiring errors in the middle, as far back as 1997, has been fighting for due recognition for his contribution to the game, for over 20 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95021","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=95021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}