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by Rohan de S. Wijeyeratne

St. Joseph's College, Colombo recently conducted a twenty 20 invitation schools cricket tournament with the participation of 12 teams. Twenty 20 cricket which was introduced in England for the first time this year had been a great success having drawn more than 250,000 spectators to the various county grounds.

Genuine concern had been expressed by certain sections of the media in Sri Lanka, as to whether a tournament of this nature was suitable at inter-school level. The argument being that this was yet another limited overs tournament which could be detrimental to the technical advancement of schoolboy cricketers.

The Cricket Advisory Committee of St. Joseph's College gave serious consideration to this vexed question and finally concluded that whilst excessive exposure to limited over cricket could endanger the development of young cricketers particularly at junior level, it would be highly unlikely that a 3 day cricket carnival could harm the progress of any player. As it transpired, it was evident that certain positive aspects emerged in the recently concluded tournament.

St. Joseph's College organised this tournament primarily as a cricket festival to bring about a sense of enjoyment to the players who have often been observed as merely going through the motions. It was also expected to revive dwindling spectator interest in school cricket and add colour to the school cricket season.

The encouraging feed back from the participating teams and the public have revealed that this objective has clearly been achieved. The tournament provided a rare opportunity for the top 10 school teams selected from last year's league table and two other invited teams to pit their skills against one another in healthy competition and also play under lights at an international cricket stadium with the added incentive of television publicity. There was no doubt that a high standard of exciting cricket was witnessed with many games proving to be close encounters with one match even ending in a tie. Although a 20 overs a side tournament may have created the impression, that all one could expect, was wild hitting from first ball to last, the tournament proved that this was far from the truth.

'The players' displayed a high degree of skill and commitment in this fast paced game and the Captains' who were not subjected to constant instructions from the dressing room, showed a great deal of maturity and understanding of the strategy that was required in different situations.

The field placing in particular, given the restrictions in force, were for the most part, commendable. Most teams completed their 20 overs within an hour and none went beyond the allotted 75 minutes.

This was a welcome change from the normal school games where the over rate is a dismal 12-13 overs per hour. The batsmen could not resort to pure slogging as they had to contend with 11 fielders unlike in a six-a-side competition. The batting was positive but cultured, with the batsman making use of every opportunity to score. Four half centuries and several scores of over 30 were recorded and most of these runs came from good cricket shots with slogging restricted to the last few overs.

The two half centuries scored in the final by Dilhan Cooray and Lahiru Anthony were particularly masterful. The bowlers showed great discipline and the fact that only 3 no balls were bowled during the entire tournament bears ample testimony to this.

The strict and often harsh interpretation of the wide rule on the leg side contributed towards the many wides bowled but there did not appear to be any deliberate attempts at negative tactics by the bowlers who strived manfully on a slow wicket. In most games, the side batting first was all out and the spinners certainly made a huge impact during the tournament with the best bowler's award being won by a Leg Spinner from Dharmasoka College.

A tournament of this nature certainly challenges the fielders and it was a privilege to witness the brilliant fielding on display. Some great catches were taken and the ground fielding was absolutely marvellous with direct hits to the stumps being more the rule than the exception.

The tournament also proved to be a test of a teams' character and this was displayed admirably by the winning team, St. Sebastian College. They came from behind to tie the game against Royal and go through on the toss and then fought back courageously to successfully chase 143 runs for victory against S. Thomas' College. They were duly rewarded for their efforts, when they comprehensively beat St. Joseph's College in the final and emerged worthy winners of the inaugural Josephian Twenty 20 Tournament. The tournament was played in a spirit of friendly camaraderie and there was not the slightest doubt that cricket was the ultimate winner.

Twenty 20 cricket is certainly not recommended for the U-12, U-14 and U-16 age groups. The limited over game be it 20 overs or 50 overs played as a regular feature is detrimental to the long-term technical development of young players and should not be encouraged.

However it must be appreciated that Sri Lanka's under-19 cricketers will be required to participate in International Limited Over Tournaments and to do so they will need to have adequate exposure to the shortened version of the game.

It is therefore incumbent upon the administrators of the game both at board and schools level to ensure that there is a sensible balance between 2-day games and limited over matches during the school cricket season. It is imperative that a properly planned cricket programme is followed for junior cricket where the emphasis should be on enjoyment and skills development rather than on winning. If this is successfully implemented, it will encourage the emergence of bring young stars with the correct attitude, on whose shoulders will rest the future of Sri Lanka cricket.

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