Sri Lanka ‘A’ team’s tour a crucial one, says Manager Ranjit

Chris Dhambarage

The Manager of the Sri Lanka ‘A’ team Ranjit Fernando believes that the upcoming unofficial series against their Australian counterparts is a crucial one for Sri Lanka cricket.

Fernando who is also a member of the newly appointed Selection Committee said that he is pleased to serve Sri Lanka Cricket once again and hope that the players will make use of this tour to improve their talent and the skill level.

Following are the excerpts from the interview.

Q: What made you think that you should comeback and serve Sri Lanka Cricket once again?

A: When I was asked to do the job I thought at some point one has to make a sacrifice to make a difference. And I felt that there were certain things needed to be addressed in Sri Lanka cricket and with the exposure that I have had I also felt that I might be able to do something about it. That was the main reason. As I said it was a sacrifice and particularly as a national selector I can’t get involved in commentary. But I believe that it is worth it.

Q: What were your previous assignments with Sri Lanka Cricket and the experience?

A: Anura Tennekoon and myself, we were the first managers of Sri Lanka cricket when we were admitted into the ICC and I have managed a lot of junior sides over the years until the 1990’s.

I was really the full time manager when Arjuna Ranatunga was captain. I had the experience of handling very tricky situations like the Muralitharan being ‘no balled’ by Ross Emerson in Adelaide. And a lot of issues gave me the exposure to handle things which are sort of challenges.

I also believe that over the years I have managed young people and as a result of it my man management skills also are to an extent developed. So I think I always felt that there was something that I could have given back even at these late stages.

Q: What was the most important series that made an impact on your career?

A: The key factor I find is that handling young cricketers is something which you gain by experience. You learn out of what the experience of other people and that is something that I have looked at upon even a hobby.

One of the things I do as a hobby is I read, virtually all the great coaches their experiences how they have reacted to various situations and I think that has helped me in good stead. I feel that this is the right time to try and pass that down to the young cricketers because I feel there is a lack of man management skills that are around generally.

Q: What is the actual role of a cricket manager?

A: I believe that a manager’s role now as it stands is running the administrative side of the game. There are two specific roles that have been given.

That is to say that there is a coach who handles the cricketing aspect, there are other people within the training staff that handles various other specialized aspects like training, physiotherapy, there is specialized bowling coaches and so on and so forth.

But my perception of a manager is that the manager is in overall charge and I believe that there is no substitute for that purely because you can have only one man in overall charge. And that person reports to Sri Lanka Cricket.

Q: What is the significance of this tour overall for you and for the team?

A: There is a transference I think from the period which we were sort of comfortably going on to a period where we might be looking to try and make changes.

Now that is the big difference that I see where you try and sort of bring that transition out of these very talented young cricketers. As far as talent and skills are concerned I don’t think they are second to anyone in the World.

But I feel that there is a little more that we need to do with them to make them more rounded cricketers.

One of my goals is that of this tour if I can make every player be the best he could be I feel that I would achieve that goal and that is my primary objective.

Q: There is a lack of test cricket at the moment for Sri Lanka and how do you look at this situation?

A: On what we have seen on paper we have had a lack of test matches.

This coming year I believe we will have something like six and there is some amount of ‘A’ team cricket as well. But having said that I must compliment the cricket officials who are currently there and even those who have got involved in cricket in the previous era’s for playing a lot more A team cricket.

That exposure I think has given Sri Lanka a lot more bench strength. Now the key thing is to try and develop that bench strength to even a higher level.

Q: There is a habit among the up and coming cricketers to become all- rounders rather than concentrating on one particular area as it was in the past. How would you look at the situation?

A: That phenomenon seems to be catching on with lot of the younger players purely because there is so much of the shorter version of the game available, the money is in the Twenty20 game so players tend to look at that, that’s quite natural and I think that’s going to be a hard act to try and curtail.

But having said that I think the key would be the people in charge the coaches and so on while allowing players to do both parts of it to try and get them to work much harder on the area in which they have greater strength.

So I would think that whilst we look at a negative I think an opportunity has come around where you find the players who are going to be good in both and you have a chance of making him a great player out of one of that. So the overall standards can also improve out of this negative sort of belief that we have.