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Internet Desk: Skipper of the 1996 Wills World Cup winning Sri Lankan Cricket team – turned Petroleum Industries Minister, Arjuna Ranatunga, said on Tuesday night that the International Cricket Council should probe the recently concluded Zimbabwe Cricket Tour of Sri Lanka. He said he had heard reports of certain suspicious individuals walking into the Sri Lanka dressing room, though he said that he did not know what the deliberations were. “It is up to the ICC, which has all the tapes of the recorded conversations,” he said.
Minister Ranatunga made these remarks to Ceylon Today in the company of a team of visiting Indian Sports Editors from the Hindu, the Deccan Herald and Wisden India who are in Sri Lanka for the ongoing Sri Lanka Test, ODI and T-20 series, at his ministry office in Dematagoda.
He also queried as to how Sri Lanka Cricket could progress when the Chairman of Sri Lanka Cricket, Thilanga Sumathipala, had direct conflict of interest with his family businesses comprising betting and gaming and also media. “This is indeed funny and it is also surprising how the ICC is not uttering a whimper against any of these practices!” he exclaimed.
He also said it was sad that cricket administration was so corrupt that his own club SSC, which he captained before captaining Sri Lanka to the World Cup win, also did not vote for him (Ranatunga) but for Sumathipala when it came to the SLC Presidency!
He also said he was in the commentary box with Kapil Dev during the India – Sri Lanka 2011 World Cup final at the Whankade Stadium in Bombay, which India won, where there were lots of suspicions about the manner in which some players acted.
“I am not taking the credit from India at all for winning the finals, but there were issues. I said that India had the best side and I have not said at any stage that there was match fixing. But, the ICC should investigate what happened with certain developments,” he said.
He also said that the administrators should be patient with cricketers as some of them develop with the passage of time. He said, “Sanath Jayasuriya and Marvan Atapattu were both awful at the start, but they blossomed out to be among the best in the world.”
“In proper cricket administration, one has to groom and nurture them, but you have to throw them into the deep end at the right time,” he said.
He also said coaches should be consulted, but it should be the skipper who should be responsible for the selection of the team and held responsible for the performance of the team, whether good or bad.
He said the tragedy was that some players were thrown into the deep end even before they learnt to swim!
He also blamed the ICC for not taking action against agents of players, whom he said, ruined some players. This is a serious issue where the agents lead the players up the garden path and both the players and the managers get destroyed at the same time.
He also said that a large number of cricketers were selected and dumped. “There were at least 40 cricketers who were tried out and discarded,” he said adding that none of that happened during his time.
“I batted at Number 5, Roshan (Mahanama) at 6 and Hashan (Tillekeratne) at 7 and we took all the pressure at that time,” Ranatunga reminisced.
Ranatunga, a veteran of 93 Tests (5,105 Test runs) and 269 ODIs (7,456 runs), was endearingly dubbed Captain Cool by New Zealand Test Cricketer and subsequent Television Umpire John Wright, after a Sri Lanka-India ODI at the SSC which Sri Lanka won in a nail biting finish, where he was the unanimous choice for the Man of the Match Award. He also holds the fourth wicket partnership record of 240 runs with the incumbent Manager Asanka Gurusinha, where both scored centuries versus India at the SSC. While Arjuna scored 116, Asanka Gurusinha scored 135.
He also said that he had great admiration for two Asian Cricket captains who won the World Cup. “I was just 19 when Indian skipper Kapil Dev lifted the Cricket World Cup in 1983 beating “Super cat” Clive Lloyd’s West Indians, depriving them of a hat-trick of World Cups in 1975, 1979 and nearly in 1983, and also Imran Khan Niazi when he beat England in the World Cup in Melbourne in December 1992. I thought as to why I, as the Sri Lankan captain, could not win a World Cup like them for whom I have the highest admiration.”
Responding to a question as to how he rates current Indian skipper Virat Kohli in the light of his captaincy in his time, Ranatunga chuckled: “He is brash and aggressive right now. May be he will temper down in another five years. He has a long way to go before he comes to be in the mould of Indian greats like Kapil (Kapil Dev), Azhar (Mohamed Azharuddin) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni.”
He also said he would like a role even now in developing school cricket, which he described as the best in the world. He has every right to say that. After all, he scored a record 12 centuries for Ananda College in 1979 under Thilan (Manjith) Wijesinghe, also Combined Schools skipper and later Board of Investment Chairman.
Also moot in this context is a sedate, match saving innings of 113 against Trinity at Asgiriya when enforced with the follow on, and with brother and opener, and later Sri Lanka opener Dhammika Ranatunga, was scared to open, unable to cope with the fierce pace of opening bowler and Trinity skipper Joseph (Ravi) Ratnayake, later vice captain to Arjuna’s Sri Lanka Cricket XI.