Cricket Changes: For Better Or Worse?

SO the winds of change swept through Sri Lanka cricket last week, and coming as it did amidst the national team’s dreadful free fall, few could’ve been surprised by the shake up. After four straight series losses in Test and ODIs and resultant demotions in the ICC rankings, you’d naturally expect administrators to react.

And the SLC did, with a raft of new appointments, but frankly, the whole thing could’ve been handled better. The administrators’ approach was ham-handed to say the least, and dare it be said, hurt the feelings of more than few. Of course, the team’s nine-month backslide made changes very predictable, but to have been publicly made aware of them with all the details via, apparently, an inspired leak some days before the official announcement gave the story a distastefulness it could’ve done without.
No sooner than reports of the impending changes hit the newsstands, Sport Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage denied the story, claiming there was no plan to replace the serving captain, coach, manager or the selectors.  As things turned out, though, the story that initially broke (in the immediate aftermath of the 43-allout defeat) was factual: skipper Tillekeratne Dilshan was booted out and Mahela Jayawardene reappointed to the job he abdicated in 2009; Coach Geoff Marsh was shown the door that opened to Graham Ford; the Duleep Mendis-headed selection committee made way for the Ashantha de Mel panel and Anura Tennekoon’s manager’s suit was handed to Charith Senanayake.  The new appointments, the Sport Minister said, will help usher a new beginning, but ironically, bar Ford’s appointment, all of the other three new appointees come second-hand, having held their respective jobs previously. But let’s leave discussions on the implications of such large scale reappointments for another day.
The question to ask now is: why minister Aluthgamage took the trouble to deny the original news report which was true anyway. There are two explanations: 1/ his plans to announce the changes at the end of the South African tour, which was really the appropriate time, was scuttled by the leak to the media, perhaps by insiders averse to the minister’s brusque, bullyboy ways of doing business. Piqued, he came right out and flatly denied that changes were “even contemplated.” Or 2/ he knew nothing at all of the changes, meaning it was conceived, acted upon and then publicized behind his back.
It isn’t a secret that minister Aluthgamage and much of the Upali Dharmadasa committee aren’t exactly on buddy-buddy terms. An uneasy relationship between the two was as good as admitted by the minister himself when he publicly said no one in cricket administration has brains – “except (secretary) Nishantha Ranatunga and himself ( the minister)’’.
Aluthgamage, of course, is notorious for mouthing aloud such bombastic remarks, normally dismissed as a lot of hot air that’s best left unanswered. But then respectable officials performing honorary jobs dislike being called idiots. So whether explanation 1 or 2 is the reason why news of impending changes was publicized prematurely, that it is a product of the less than cordial relationship between minister/Board secretary and much of rest of the Dharmadasa committee is difficult to discount.
Be that as it may, the ill-timed revelation caused quite some embarrassment to the affected persons, especially the deposed captain and coach and Sri Lanka cricket as a whole. Because after the news initially became public, albeit unofficially, Dilshan’s team performed quite remarkably. Breathtakingly, they swept to victory in the last two ODIs, thrillingly overhauling 300-run targets in both games – and so partially mending the team’s tattered reputation, as well as regaining some measure of the public’s adoration of them .
When news of the impending changes were first revealed, and denied, a 5/0 whitewash looked imminent. The eventual 2/3 margin, however, was a lot more respectable (and could well easily have been 3/2/in our favour but for rain and D/L). When you add the historic first Test win in South Africa to the stunning comeback in the ODIs, the tour, it has to be said, was completed far more satisfactorily than seemed possible initially. After all, following the whipping by an innings on the third day of the first Test, the prospect of a 3/0 series hammering seemed realistic. The ODI prospects looked darker; after the host had wrapped the series 3/0, inflicting in the process our worst ever one-day defeat, a 5/0 routing was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
Not that the historic Test win and the improved performances in the last two ODIs would’ve guaranteed Dilshan a renewal of his captaincy, but there was reason to lend him the courtesy of a review at least. But the changes had already been written into stone, and Dilshan left feeling like the schoolboy who was expelled for not doing his homework.
The official reason given for his removal, however, wasn’t because of weak leadership qualities, but that he had resigned of his own accord. Really? Then that must’ve  been a resignation he wrote on the flight back home because a few hours before boarding the home-bound aircraft he told the media: “If they offer it (captaincy) to me I’ll take it because I am really enjoying my captaincy.’’
This is not to say that Dilshan has been hard done by; let’s face it, his leadership was questionable, especially when juxtaposing his nine months with the collective six-year term of his predecessors, Jayawardene and Sangakkara, both savvier and extremely successful leaders. But holding the reins at the start of the post-Muralidaran period was always going to present difficulties, no matter who the leader. Even so, under no previous captain has the country been such serial losers as in the nine months of Dilshan’s leadership. So, he had to go – and whether fortunes will improve in Jayewardene’s second term as captain, only time will tell.
What is clearer: Sri Lanka cricket is adopting a get-tough policy that deems a captain’s job is safe only as long as his team keeps winning. It ignores the fundamental fact that a captain can be only as good as his team. It is naïve to believe that the failures over the last nine months have solely been due to poor captaincy; the deficiencies in the batting and bowling were plain to see. Jayawardene himself thinks Dilshan deserved more than the time he was given to prove himself, especially as he acquired a team on the remake.
But times are now less charitable and forgiving, thanks to a Sport Minister’s motto: do or depart. Dilshan’s removal might be justifiable, but his exit and those of coach, manager and selectors is clear notice of intolerance for failure. This Sword of Damocles scenario cruelly changes the climate in which our cricketers will have to perform – and that might well aggravate the problem that the changes seek to solve. Dictatorial orders don’t bring triumphs on the playing field.
The termination of Geoff Marsh as national coach is sad as it is unfair. After all he assumed duties just days before the Pakistan series in early November. So to dismiss him after just about three months and two series is, well, you can’t get more myopic than that. It is excusable to assume that, should South African Ford fail to deliver wins in the next series or two, he too will be asked to take the next plane back home. It should not be forgotten that, since Trevor Bayliss’s leaving last April, Sri Lanka has had three head coaches – Stewart Law for the English tour, Rumesh Ratnayake for the series against Australia and then Marsh since last November: i.e. four coaches in nine months, a staggering rate of a different coach every 2.1 months – a turnover that could make Sri Lanka the least appealing place for an overseas coach to work in.
Let’s hope last week’s winds of change doesn’t blow Sri Lanka cricket to even more turbulent waters. So, God help Jayawardene’s men.