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| Tuesday, 4 November 2003 |
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John Dyson confident Comment by Dr. Elmo Rodrigopulle John Dyson, the new Sri Lanka cricket coach in a chat with Nihal Bharethi on the popular programme. 'Melodies and Memories', on Saturday sounded very confident and optimistic about Sri Lanka's chances against England in the Tests and one-day series beginning next month. Dyson said that the team is training hard, very professional and that he expects a good series. Sri Lanka playing on their home patch and with the climatic conditions to their liking should be in front. The wickets too, with the home team having the advantage of preparing it should be in our favour. The unwritten law is that the home team will always prepare wickets more to the liking of their bowlers. And it is likely that the wickets will be spin friendly. If that is the case then Muttiah Muralitheran should have a rich haul of wickets to show at the end of the series. Surprisingly on the previous tour, the wickets were to the liking of the spinners and England won the series with left arm spinner Ashley Giles doing the damage. But on the Bangladesh tour, Giles has not been anywhere near his best which must be causing worries in their camp. Muralitheran has the god given ability to turn on any surface. If he is fit and not injury prone, then he will be the bowler English batsmen would like to blunt which could make the rest of the home team attack look innocuous. Left arm medium pacer Chaminda Vaas could as usual provide the early breakthrough and beyond him there is no other bowler who could torment the visiting batsmen. One other bowler who could prove menacing if given the nod is allrounder Upul Chandana. With his tantalising googlies and leg spinners he can bamboozle, provided the selectors shown faith in him and front him up. But surprisingly captains and selectors don't seem to have much faith in him. This is intriguing. A bowler of his kind is a match winner on any day, provided he is handled cleverly and intelligently. One must not also forget that he is the one and only genuine allrounder that Sri Lanka cricket could boast of. He has been in the wilderness for far too long. With Lokuarachchi doing his penance, we hope that Chandana would be persisted with. It would have warmed the cockles of the selectors to note that finally Nuwan Zoysa is beginning to show the true potential in him. On the tour of South Africa and Kenya, he shone as an allrounder. That was because the tour selectors gave him the necessary confidence to prove his potential. The tour selectors believed in him so much that they even promoted him to open the batting at times and how convincingly he performed. Zoysa must be pitted against the English so that he can further unwind and deliver. Blatter's gift Football will soon be in paradise if the schemes and programmes sown by Vice President of the Asian Football Confederation and Generalissimo of Sri Lanka Football Manilal Fernando begins to bear fruit. Fernando is determined and convinced that the game will reach great heights once he is able to make the game professional. The other day he unravelled the hitherto unknown truth that eight of the Syrian players who outplayed Sri Lanka in Syria were professionals with European Clubs. To perform one must have peace of mind. In other words one must be contended. This would come once the players are paid for playing. Take the cricketers. They are in name employed in firms. In addition to being paid by their firms they are also paid big salaries by Sri Lanka Cricket where they are under contract. Football here is primarily the poor man's game. Could the critics say that the soccer players are earning such staggering figures? FIFA President Sepp Blatter must be admired for showing his admiration for Sri Lanka football and granting a sum of 400,000 US Dollars for the improvement of the game here. Blatter in so doing has given a vote of confidence not only for the game but more importantly for Manilal Fernando to press ahead with determination to give the game here a better place in the sun. Minister Johnston Fernando and his officials are aware of the value that Fernando is to the game and sports in general in its endeavour to hit the big time and have also placed their confidence in him.Confidence and trust is what is required and it won't be long before the players realise what Fernando is doing for the game, the player and the official and begin to hit the net consistently. Today sad to say some of our top notch footballers do not have the all important employment or a house to call their own. They require sympathy and help and not blind criticism. |
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