Glimpse of Nish's world

Cricinfo staff
September 10, 2007
The Sri Lanka team was named as the recipient of the Spirit of Cricket Award at the ICC Awards celebration in Johannesburg on Monday.

The Spirit of Cricket Award was presented to the team which, in the opinion of the elite panel of umpires and referees and the captains of the ten Test teams, has best conducted themselves on the field within the spirit of the game. The award was presented to Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene by former South Africa batsman Jonty Rhodes.

Upon receiving the award on behalf of his team Jayawardene said: "I think it's important to remember the spirit of cricket. We try to enjoy what we do, playing against other countries. That was shown in the World Cup with Ireland - they really enjoyed themselves there and it was great to play against that team too.

"We are there to win a match but we are also entertainers as well. The most important thing we can do is enjoy the game. We are very lucky to do what we do and it is vital that we remember that. We play a different brand of cricket and we all enjoy playing. There is so much pride to wear the cap for our country. Spirit of cricket can be explained in many different ways."

This Spirit is described in the preamble to the Laws of Cricket: "Cricket is a game that owes much of its unique appeal to the fact that it should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game. Any action which is seen to abuse this spirit causes injury to the game itself."

This is the first time Sri Lanka has won the award, after England collected the last two and New Zealand took the honour at the inaugural ICC Awards in 2004. Sri Lanka was one of several teams that demonstrated the Spirit of Cricket to great effect over the past 12 months and they narrowly defeated Ireland and New Zealand for the prize.

© Cricinfo

Labels: Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Cricket

Muttiah Muralitharan will use negative comments from Australian crowds to spur him on to break Shane Warne's record for Test wickets, according to his manager Kushil Gunasekera.

The 35-year-old off-spinner is eight wickets short of Warne's record of 708 scalps, and looks likely to pass the mark when Sri Lanka face Australia in Tests in Brisbane and Hobart in November.

Murali has twice been called for throwing against Australia, earning him some abuse from the Aussie fans, but Gunasekera believes his man is more than capable of handling the pressure.

"He is comfortable with what Australia is like," he told the Melbourne Herald Sun.

"He understands the harassment given by spectators will only make him more inspired and motivated. It will help him bowl better.

"He is happy to be taking on that challenge because Australia is a real test. He will come to Australia."

Muralitharan was first called for throwing by umpire Darrell Hair in the Boxing Day Test match against Australia at Melbourne in 1995.

This was followed nine years later by match referee Chris Broad reporting him for a suspect action after he took 28 wickets in a three-Test series on home soil against the Australians.

Labels: Cricket, Murali, Muralitharan, Sri Lanka Cricket

TOM MOODY has lashed out at Australian crowds, admitting he is embarrassed by the derogatory reaction and constant harassment directed towards Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralidaran.
A World Cup winner with Australia in 1999, Moody, who has resigned after a successful stint as Sri Lanka coach, claims Murali's action is more legal than some other bowlers playing international cricket.

"As an Australian through and through, when I have been with the Sri Lankan team in Australia, or playing against them in the World Cup, it's the only situation we find in the whole of the cricketing world where we have this disgraceful slant on a cricketer," Moody said this week.

"My take on it, and I hope I'm right, and I've shared this with Murali, is that it's Australia's nature to show that response in a way of respect and acknowledgement of someone who is pretty special and unique.

"It's a direct insult as it may be seen or heard or given. It's treading a very fine line of sportsmanship.

"I don't know if I'm right. I hope I'm right because at times I've found it incredibly embarrassing when you tour all around the world with a team that has a bowler who is a unique genius; that he's subjected to that type of behaviour in Australia."

Moody believes part of the reason for this is the competition between Murali and Australia's recently retired champion spinner Shane Warne, who is the world's leading wicket-taker with 708.

Murali is second with 674 but given the amount he bowls and the rate at which he takes his wickets he is likely to pass Warne within a year. When Murali tours Australia for two Tests in November, he will still be behind Warne.

"They're protecting their own. Australia has produced the greatest leg-spinner of all time and Australians are very proud of that," Moody said. "There's that constant comparison between Warne and Murali, but I just think you cannot even begin to try and compare the two."

Many Australians, including most of the national team, have harboured suspicions about Murali's ultra-flexible action, which includes a bent elbow, apparently a birth deformity.

This exploded publicly on Boxing Day 1995 when umpire Darrell Hair called Murali seven times for throwing, creating a furore. He was subsequently called during a one-day series in Australia, which almost prompted Sri Lanka to walk off midway through a one-day match in Adelaide four years later.

Murali refused to tour Australia in 2004 because of his treatment by Australians, including Prime Minister John Howard, who sparked an international incident when he claimed publicly that science had proved Murali threw.

Largely on the back of controversy surrounding Murali, the International Cricket Council set up a detailed study of bowling actions with the latest scientific equipment, and found to its horror that just about every bowler threw the ball to some extent.

It was only when a bowler's arm flexed to 15 degrees that it became detectable to the naked eye so the ICC set 15 degrees as the limit for a bowler's elbow movement.

Any bowler now reported by umpires for having a suspect action must be scientifically tested. If found to be outside the 15-degree parameter the bowler is banned and must have remedial work with experts before being allowed to play again.

When Murali was on his last tour to Australia for a one-day series two seasons ago he became so sick of crowd treatment and media claims he was never properly tested that he took himself off to the University of Western Australia to be tested again.

"We were incredibly alarmed and surprised about that because we thought if you're going to do that, at least do it through the management, but he felt an obligation to prove to himself that he wasn't bending the rules, so to speak," Moody said.

"There were articles claiming he hadn't been tested bowling at different speeds so he took himself off one morning on his day off and organised himself to get tested properly.

"He bowled the whole shooting match of doosras and toppies and offies at all different speeds and he walked away comfortably under the 15-degree parameter. There wasn't one delivery that was over.

"I've got the report that shows it all; every single delivery. So where do you go, what else can a bloke do?"

Labels: Doosra, Murali, Muralidaran, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Cricket

They have blended youth and experience, planning and flexibility, a raised eyebrow and a gentle smile. If Australia win the World Cup, the one-day game will move further into the laptop and towards power and fitness. If Sri Lanka win, it will be a triumph of spirit. The happy smile would have triumphed over the furrowed brow, writes Suresh Menon

In 1996, Sri Lanka crushed India’s dreams en route to winning the World Cup. Indian fans who tend to draw horns and provide tails and tridents to teams which beat their beloved heroes, somehow acknowledged Sri Lanka’s superiority.

It was as if they were saying, “If we can’t win, then you are our next choice.” A decade and a year later Sri Lanka throw India out of the World Cup, and except for some SMS jokes — which are more affectionate than vicious — nothing has changed.

Why do we love to love Sri Lanka?
The answer is — like Sri Lanka’s cricket — simplicity itself. A bunch of talented players come together as a team, with a heightened sense of their place in the scheme of things.

There are a couple of superstars, but they are focused on geeing up the team rather than calculating by how much a six or a wicket enhances their value in the endorsement market. As the team went out to field against the West Indies, the most animated pep talk came from Muttiah Muralitharan. He could so easily have cocooned himself, kept aloof. Yet here he was, as excited as a kid making his debut. It is a rare spirit.

The simplicity extends to their game too. There are only two types of batsmen — those who describe lovely arcs, usually over the boundary, and those whose batsmanship is made up of straight lines and high elbows. The bowlers have pace and cunning, or spin and cunning. And the wicket keeper is a weapon of mass destruction as he showed when he stumped Brian Lara off the medium pacer Chaminda Vaas or ran out batsmen by converting good throws into great ones.

Above all — and this, I think is the crux — this is a team which enjoys itself, and the players communicate that enjoyment to the spectators. There is something old-fashioned in the notion of enjoying the game. You are not supposed to in the post-modern era with its emphasis on winning and on calculating net run rates. But even Duckworth-Lewis smiles kindly on such teams as it did four years ago in South Africa.

Sri Lankans have raised their game to a level of simplicity that is startling. Coaches and laptop men have made cricket unnecessarily complicated, introducing elements that restrict the expression of personality. Luckily, batting such as Jayasuriya’s cannot be programmed in advance. Pitch the ball to him thrice in succession at the same spot and he will hit you to three different areas of the field. Like a master, he performs best when you call his form and class into question.

Likewise Muralitharan. He beat Chanderpaul every ball of a four-ball sequence with what looked like identical deliveries, but each did just enough to laugh at the batsman and skip out of range like a high-spirited child. The skill is impressive; the delight in exhibiting it even more so.

In a team of outstanding fielders — so Asian teams can field after all! — Dilshan Tillekeratne stands out, just as he stands out as a batsman. As a bowler he is a super sopper, drying up runs. It is easy to imagine that players feel someone will rise to the occasion, and therefore there are no crises. But to attribute to chance what is the result of hard work and professionalism is criminal.

For Sri Lankans are one of the most professional sides in the tournament, fully aware of what is expected of them, and fully geared to doing it with minimum fuss. But professionalism does not include being dour, or boring or pedantic. Sri Lanka have shown there is room for self-expression, for sheer enjoyment, for setting up unexpected challenges even under the umbrella of professionalism.

They have blended youth and experience, planning and flexibility, a raised eyebrow and a gentle smile. If Australia win the World Cup (they must worry they have peaked too early), the one-day game will move further into the laptop and towards power and fitness. If Sri Lanka win, it will be a triumph of spirit. The happy smile would have triumphed over the furrowed brow.

It is not difficult to love a team which tempers professionalism with spontaneity and moors high-spiritedness to effectiveness.
(source: http://www.dnaindia.com)

Labels: Cricket World Cup, Sri Lanka Cricket

here are a variety of reasons for Sri Lankan cricket's excellent health. The players, selectors, administrators, coaches, and above all, the fans, have contributed to it. But there is an unseen factor which needs recognition, namely, Sri Lankan culture, especially the culture of the majority community, the Sinhalese.

The Sinhalese are, quintessentially, outdoor people. They not only love sports but give it a high status. Come Sunday or any holiday, rural boys would hold cross-country bicycle races. And unlike their counterparts in India, Sinhalese middle class parents do not deride their children's participation in sports as a waste of time. Job recruiters attach high value to sporting achievements. There is, thus, an incentive to play, and play hard, from an early age.

Sri Lanka may be a new comer to international cricket, but it has been an ardent cricketing nation for over a century. However, till the late 1980s, cricket was an elite game, restricted to the high class English medium schools in Colombo and Kandy – a cultural badge of a social class rather than a serious competitive sport.

Sea change

But Arjuna Ranatunga's ascendancy as captain in 1988 brought about a sea change. "Arjuna" as he is known, provided an innovative and aggressive leadership. He had a passion for promoting new talent, no matter where they came from. He boosted players' morale by standing up for those who had been treated unjustly, no matter who the tormentor was.

"Arjuna was dictating terms at that time. He did a lot for cricketers from outside Colombo. He brought in Sanath Jayasuiriya from Matara in the deep south, and gave him accommodation in his house in Colombo so that he could concentrate on the game," recalled Mahendra Ratnaweera, a senior cricket journalist.

Under the new conditions, the Sri Lankan team kept improving and grabbed the World Cup in 1996 – an event which ushered in a new epoch in Sri Lankan cricket.

"The cricket board prospered with sponsors coming in, and ad revenue increasing steeply. The game became popular in the outstations (small towns and rural areas). Money began to be spent on promoting the game in the schools, provinces and remote areas. And players were beginning to emerge from the outlying areas," Ratnaweera said.

In an innovative scheme, established players were made to play for their home districts so that the standard of cricket in the outback improved.

And outstation players helped improve cricket in their own way. "They had a hunger for the game. Playing for the country was something very big for the small town boys. They worked hard also because they had few other preoccupations, unlike the ones from Colombo's elite schools who were into studies and computers," noted Sidath Wettimuny, who scored Sri Lanka's first Test century in the series against Pakistan in 1981-82.

"In the last ten years, Sri Lankan cricket boards have not been afraid of using new talent, regardless of where they come from. That is why we have the likes of Lasith Malinga and Chamara Silva today," Wettimuny said.

Fostering professionalism

With the board getting richer, it entered into contracts with promising players to enable them to be full time players. This helped the growth of professionalism and commitment to the game.

"Under this system, the players practiced every day from 7.30 am to 12.30 pm, and in the evening they went for workouts," Ratnaweera said.

In contrast to Indian cricket, the Sri Lankan coaching and selection systems have given primary importance to fielding. "If a player is not a good fielder, he will have no place in a Sri Lankan team," said Wettimuny, a selector himself.

Sri Lanka has also had the advantage of having good Australian coaches like Dav Whatmore, John Dyson, Bruce Yardley and now, Tom Moody, who, to a man, have emphasised the importance of fielding.

The Sri Lankan team has the needed variety, and selectors routinely insist on having a "balanced" side. "Marwan Attapattu is a very good player, but he has had to stay out because he is not required in the team now. His inclusion will have upset the balance there," pointed out former ace batsman, Romesh Kaluwitharana.

Role of the board

Sri Lankan cricket boards have much to be proud of in fostering the game, but they have also been a hotbed of politics.

Board presidents have faced allegations of misappropriation. Elections have been challenged and annulled. And too many people (1400), including those from non-playing clubs, are involved in electing the President.

"But till date, board politics and conflicts have not had an adverse effect on the game," Wettimuny said.

"So long as the administrators do not interfere with the players, and players do not interfere with the administrators, it is fine," chipped in Kaluwitharana.

No demigods

Sri Lankan cricketers are well paid, but cricket is not as commercialised as it is in India. "This is probably because the market here is much smaller than it is in India," explained Wettimuny.

But above all, the players in Sri Lanka are not demigods. Perhaps due to Buddhism, which discourages the growth of cults and hero worship, the players, however successful, are not deified.

And the media here act as watchdogs, and not as advertising agencies, which manufacture demigods and raise the stakes beyond human endurance.

"The fans should look at cricket as a game and not as war. India is one of the best sides in the world, but the pressure from the fans had crippled the team. I am glad I am not an Indian cricketer," said Kaluwithrarana with relief.
(courtesy Hindustan Times)

Labels: Sri Lanka Cricket