Tillekeratne Dilshan’s words of wisdom on captaincy

At a prèss briefing on the eve of the Third One-day game against Pakistan former Sri Lanka skipper and opening batsman Tillekeratne Dishan said that current captain Mahela Jayawardena should continue till the next World Cup in 2015.

Dilshan also said that Vice Captain Angelo Mathews should not be rushed into the hot seat of captaincy just now, but must continue to learn more under Mahela Jaywardena before taking on the onerous job. Dilshan was spot on and was speaking from experience. Matthews is still young and must not be rushed. He must watch how Jayawardena leads, learn and once he masters the difficult art should be given the job.

Must bide his time

Many captains have been rushed before time and have sadly come a cropper. Mathews should not be allowed to suffer that fate. He has what it takes to be a shrewd and successful captain. He must bide his time. And more importantly enjoy playing the game without the encumberances that go with leading a national side. Dilshan, in saying that Mahela Jayawardena should lead till the next World Cup, put to rest any other claimant for this post. Since being recalled, Jayawardena has done a magnificent job as the results prove. He must be persevered with. Coach Graham Ford has implicit faith in all rounder Thisara Perera and said that he must be given a go in Test cricket. A couple of days later Perera repaid the confidence the coach had in him by further strengthening his case by bagging a hat-trick in the fourth one-dayer against Pakistan. It would also not be a bad idea to consider Nuwan Kulesekera as a Test match opening bowler. He has what it takes to be a success. He must be given a chance to prove himself.

Mysterious ways

The International Cricket Council and its committees are known to act in mysterious ways. If this is not so how can one explain what follows. An Indian engineer from the Southern State of Kerala named V. Jayadevan, had according to reports, worked on a system called VJD for over a decade, which is a system like the Duckworth/Lewis system. Jayadevan had worked on perfecting this system and his methodolgy had been used in Indian domestic matches since 2007. It was recommended by former Indian opener and Captain Sunil Gavaskar.

Rain-affected

This system was forwarded to the ICC Cricket Committee and after studying the Jayadevan System, decided to stick with the D/L rule for deciding rain-affected matches. In arguing for his system to be used internationally, Jayadevan had said that the D/L system often produced targets that were ‘not reasonable or sensible’. Jayadevan has a point that cannot be easily dismissed. But the ICC Cricket Committee captained by former West Indian Captain Clive Lloyd, who was also called ‘super cat’ for his brilliant fielding said that it had considered Jayadevan’s method in great detail and that the committee unanimously agreed that there was no evidence of any significant flaws in the D/L method nor did the committee believe that any improvements could be offered by the VJD method.

Support from Gavaskar

But Gavaskar a strong supporter of the Jayadevan method took the ICC Cricket Committee to task saying that like they do with trial laws, they could have experimented with the new system for a year, and then decided. Similarly, when the Umpires Decision Referral System, a system mooted by Sri Lanka’s own Attorney at Law Seneka Weeraratne was forwarded to the ICC they refused to accept it and give credit to Weeraratne. But Weeraratne will not take no for an answer. He is continuing his crusade to have the UDRS recognize as a system coming from him. His hindrance in not succeeding is that he is not been backed by the powers that be in Sri Lanka cricket.

India here in July

It is a bit intriguing to note that going by the draw cards of cricket today, India will be touring Sri Lanka next month to play Five 50-over One-Day Internationals and one Twenty20 game. With both teams fine tuning for the Twenty20 World Cup to be played here in September/October it would been more sensible had the two teams agreed to play a Twenty20 series rather than a 50-over series. Probably the two Cricket Boards – Board of Control for Cricket in India and Sri Lanka Cricket would have good reasons for agreeing to play 50-over games. But to the connoisseurs Twenty20 games would have been more sensible.

Amarasena passes away

It is with deep sadness that this column records the passing away of former Ananda and Police cricketer Lorance Amarasena after a brief illness.

After a successful stint at Ananda where he excelled as an off spinning all rounder, Amarasena joined the Police and played with success in all tournaments including the premier tournament in Sri Lanka the P.Sara before retiring as a Deputy Inspector General. After his playing days were over, Amarasena served Sri Lanka Cricket to the best of his ability holding several important and responsible posts. This columnist knew Amarasena as a schoolboy when he was hailed from Kotahena and was a good softball player and many were the matches we played against each other.

That was the 1970s when a team known as the Young Beavers dominated softball cricket in Kotahena and which was a craze with so many tournaments being conducted. Young Beavers were led by Maxwell Dharmaratne of Dharmaratne Brothers fame and included Benedictine cricketers such as Ranjit and Sunil Fernando, Nihal Zoysa, Sanath Jayawardena, Cosmas Perera, Edward Sumanasekera, Percy Perera, Kenneth Dabrera, Patrick Perera, Edgar de Zylva, Frank Rodrigo and the writer, names that come to mind. At that time YB had an umpire in Milroy Pieris who would rule a batsman out LBW only if all the fielders appealed including point and square leg. E.P. Rajaratnam was the President of the YB. ‘Those were the days my friend’, as the perennial from Mary Hopkin goes.

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