Justifiable reasons?

THE stories doing the rounds in cricket circles and creating a great deal of anxiety among the cricketing fraternity is that the interim committee of Sri Lanka Cricket is going to increase the number of clubs participating in the Premier trophy tournament by four to 20 for the 2005-06 season.

There is a certain element of truth to that story. As they say there are two sides to a story. One side is that by promoting the four clubs the interim committee is further diluting the standard of domestic cricket.

The widely held opinion among past cricketers and captains who form the Cricket Committee is that the number of clubs participating should be reduced to 10 or 12 to make it more viable and competitive.

But interim committee secretary Tryphon Mirando outlined the reasons why the four clubs Singha SC, Saracens SC, Badureliya CC and Lankan CC are being promoted to play in the forthcoming tournament.

Mirando said that great injustice had prevailed on these four clubs by not playing the semi-finals of the Sara trophy tournament in which they participated last season.

The injustice he said mounted to the semi-finals being delayed rather unjustifiably because the quarter-finals had been played in the first week of November. When the December 26 tsunami struck, all the tournaments for that season was subsequently cancelled.

Mirando said to be fair by everybody and to give equal chance to the four affected clubs the interim committee after going deeply into the details why the semi-finals was not played earlier, were of the opinion that these clubs be allowed to play in the 2005-06 Premier trophy tournament.

He further said that the Premier tournament will have 20 clubs only for this season because they have drafted a three-year plan that by the end of the following two seasons the number of clubs will be reduced to either eight or ten.

This, he stated will be done by relegating initially the last six clubs at the end of the 2005-06 season and then a further six clubs by the end of the 2006-07 season.

"We have tried every possible way of getting over the problem. Although a final decision has yet to be arrived at we are of the opinion that everybody should be treated properly and fairly. These four clubs have fought hard and come up and it is total injustice to keep them out," said Mirando.

He emphasized that the majority of members in the interim and cricket committee was not in favour of enlarging the number of teams in the Premier competition but it was being done in this instance because of the injustice done to the clubs.

The P. Saravanamuttu Stadium

It was a pleasant experience once again to witness a Test match played at the P. Saravanamuttu Stadium, venue of Sri Lanka's inaugural Test against England 23 years ago and also venue of the country's maiden Test win over India in 1985.

It was this week venue of another historic achievement when the illustrious Sanath Jayasuriya played in his 100th Test match, the first Sri Lankan cricketer to achieve the honour.

With the long-standing history it has connected with Sri Lanka cricket it is a crying shame that Test matches are not frequently played there. Only when there is an interim committee administering cricket that the stadium is duly given recognition for what its worth.

One can understand the problems any administration that runs cricket faces when trying to allocate a Test match to this prestigious venue. In a series of three Tests only one is played in Colombo with the other two scheduled for Kandy and Galle.

Invariably SSC, which houses the headquarters of Sri Lanka Cricket, gets preference over the Sara Stadium. But the question is why is it that not even an unofficial four-day test is allocated to this venue?

After all one cannot forget the contribution this ground has made to Sri Lanka cricket over the years. It still without doubt produces the best Test match pitch and outfield.

Although the same cannot be said of the rest of the infrastructure, Tamil Union who owns the stadium has a point why they cannot upgrade it.

The club's new president Selva Perumal, a former Benedictine and club cricketer asked what guarantee his club can get of hosting future Test matches if they upgrade the facilities at the stadium? "Our members are surely going to question me as to why I pumped so many millions of rupees upgrading it if it is going to be used once in five or ten years to host a Test," he said.

In fact in the last ten years, of the 50 Test matches played at home, the Sara Stadium has hosted only three.

One of the main areas which Tamil Union should concentrate on whether they host a Test match or any other international match is improving the infrastructure in the section allocated to the print media.

During the second cricket Test between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, it resembled something of a fish market with all and sundry converging on to the box and creating quite a ruckus that it was impossible for the local and foreign print media personnel to concentrate on their work.

This situation does not arise at any of the other Test or international venues in Sri Lanka. Food for thought to the Tamil Union and Sri Lanka Cricket authorities.