While experts reckon this may be England’s best time in decades to make a play for the ICC Cricket World Cup trophy and defending champions Australia are being talked about in regenerative terms, there is one team headed into this tournament, not only subdued but also, outright written out of contention. Even as Sri Lanka continue to fight fire with fire off the field, there is little on-field action to suggest the naysayers are wrong.
India have an outside chance, certainly a place in the top four. South Africa, without expectations, are sitting like the white elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. Even Pakistan, with their ups and downs and see saw results, are not being ruled out. New Zealand have always been dangerous floaters and they showed why in the warm up match against India.
However, the one team no one is talking about is because unlike Afghanistan, Bangladesh or the West Indies who are all likely to cause an upset, Sri Lanka have shown little in the lead up to the big event in England to suggest that they were even inclined to cause one. It has to be worrisome because Sri Lanka, as the one time champions in 1996, brought a lot of flair, innovation, not to mention talent to the table.
Of late, Sri Lanka’s cricket headlines have had little to do with their results and more to do with in-fighting, mismanagement, disharmony in the dressing room, lack of cohesive selection as the captaincy became musical chairs and also, corruption scandals that have hit cricket hard. Where these issues were previously on the sidelines in the past couple of decades, they are now front and center and out in the open.
If the likes of Angelo Mathews felt sidelined when his captaincy was brought into question to the point of wanting to quit cricket, he has been quick to swipe away Mahela Jayawardene’s contention and defend himself against the former captain’s contention that politics in cricket had caused about Sri Lankan cricket’s downturn in recent years. This is not only misleading but also, far from the truth. What it does point to is that issues are still raw and there is a great deal of mistrust and disharmony at play, even between former team mates.
There is little doubt, despite the bleak defense and petition for support put forth by Mathews that Sri Lanka have been a less than settled unit. Both, Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal, have had their slice of the captaincy. Lasith Malinga’s captaincy was short-lived and turmoil filled and the current captain is only on the chair as a result of unexpected results in Sri Lanka’s favour in the Test cricket format in South Africa recently.
This is not to write off Sri Lanka as done and dusted. But there is little doubt that Sri Lanka are going to have to pull off plenty of miracles, with their opponents having to do something drastically stupid on the day, for Sri Lanka to find themselves anywhere close to contention when the tournament enters the second half.
While it is easy to see that the Sri Lankan cricketers are still sensitive, evidenced in Mathews’ post in social media in response to Jayawardene’s analysis, Mathews’ contention that the former captain take up a position of support is two faced in that the likes of Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara, pillars of Sri Lankan cricket until four years ago, have been wary of lending themselves to the cause of the Sri Lankan cricket behind the scenes with their board in constant state of dissolution and power struggle, with the captaincy becoming an increasingly fragile hot bed of trouble, and the team’s results stuttering for want of cohesion on and off the field.
In many ways, it is Sri Lanka’s own cricket troubles that have landed them in hot water and the issues over corruption charges to their senior former cricketers has not helped them. These are self-inflicted wounds Sri Lanka are nursing on the sidelines of the epic tournament. It is a sad reflection for the one time exuberant World Cup trophy holders and also, sadder still that the ICC and the rest of the cricket boards stand by as mere spectators and will not intervene in the horrendous spectacle to the unraveling of this team from the Emerald Isles.