Sri Lanka Cricket trapped by parental invasion
– A flood of youth or schoolboy cricket may make matters worse for the new interim set of office bearers of Sri Lanka Cricket who will make no secret of the proliferation of the sport at junior level that is piling up quantity more than quality. The interference of parents and the deployment of substandard coaches that have mushroomed in an overnight syndrome have also contributed to the overdose of school cricket compared to the days when just one Under-19 inter school League produced the World Cup winning players of 1996.
Currently schoolboys in all age groups play round the clock, 365 days of the year compared to three decades ago when Under-19 teams played just 10 or 12 matches in highly competitive seasons and enrolled at the 10 clubs that played one step below international Test cricket. “There is a demand and supply scenario. A surfeit of (school) cricket. Parents or coaches are coaching the children every ball and setting the field from outside the boundary and decide who should bat. “We have to rationalise all this starting from the top”, said Sidat Wettimuny the former opener who has now being brought in to serve in a Sri Lanka Cricket transition committee with a mandate to clean up the sport’s self-destructed administration. School cricket is expected to receive special attention being the supply route to the nation’s international team that has been struggling to keep abreast with current developments.
Wettimuny and the rest of his transition team have already realized that over a hundred competitive schools play cricket in more than a thousand matches a year from Under-19 to Under-15 levels. The schoolboys are then drafted into makeshift district, provincial and zonal teams raising questions on how much of time can a schoolboy devote to academic development. “Today children practice seven days a week. During my time we just practiced two days a week and played two days of weekend cricket. How does one play so much of cricket? How does one have a rest?” said Wettimuny. But having made a start to clean up the rot that was made to fester in the country with cricket becoming everybody’s business, Sri Lanka Cricket’s present care takers also know that nothing can be changed overnight with one stroke of the pen.
“I cannot blame anyone. It is a demand and supply scenario we are faced with”, said Wettimuny. “It may take some time to correct all this”. The gentleman that he continues to be, Wettimuny noted what he called the “chaos” at Sri Lanka Cricket.
