By Srian Obeyesekere
Sri Lanka Cricket installing two topmost foreign head coaches in Gary Kirsten from South Africa and Jamie Siddons from Australia for the men’s and women’a teams respectively is a clear reflection of the Shammi Silva led far sighted administration in leaving no stones unturned to maximising player potential at a time overtures are being made to have interim committees running the sport.
The level of foreign expert knowhow and high tech infrastructure and physical training to the most sophisticated forms national cricketers have been provided with in over the last decade is a reflection of SLCs untiring efforts at ensuring that today’s generation of cricketers are brought under the hammer of the best and nothing but the best in the world in respect of man power and facilities to galvanising player output. Added to which a modern era where players are more than well remunerated in a flow of dollars as thick as they come as never before. Never before as a bygone past when the country’s early generation Bandula Warnapura and Duleep Mendis led cricketers went through nothing but a thorny trek of sweat, blood and tears to planting the first seeds to international recognition that Sri Lanka basks in ever since winning ICC test status in 1981. Those were the days when national players travelled by bus for cricket practices unlike today’s generation of players who bask in a lap of luxury from the very preparatory level of a sophisticated high performance center and brain center, the latter providing up-to-date data with statistical backing of Lankan player assessment standards as well as of all other countries.
At structural level as much the game has been upgraded to the hilt in respect of long term and the short format of the game. What is more local players from the grassroots level have been given the luxury of playing alongside top foreign players through a well cemented local franchise of the Lanka Premier league in taking a cue from the now world famous and roundly accepted Indian Premier League (IPL) that has raised player standards in leaps and bounds.
In fact turning to two former Sri Lankan greats in firstly Mahela Jayawardene as consultant and Sanath Jayasuriya in the last exercise that saw him exit in the wake of a failed T20 World Cup has as much fallen on the wayside leading to having the services of a former world cup winning head coach in Gary Kirsten, who tutored India’s 2011 world cup winning team as head coach of the men’s teams and Jamie Siddons of the women’s team.
That player performances have not met desired winning standards in so much that Sri Lanka has not won a world cup since 2014 is a grim reminder of greater player commitment to raising the bar.
That Sri Lanka does not get a fair share of annual international matches has been a negating factor where the captains have been lamenting that consequently they are deprived of the desired balanced international experience unlike some of the more privileged countries is a serious factor the ICC hierarchy needs to put on an equal footing for all.