Sri Lanka was once a fortress of cricket where they built that on the morals of success, dedication, and triumph. As per every success story where time defines the swing between success and failure nowadays Sri Lanka has been forced to live with a stone of transition or under par performance that has been tight to them. Years and years are gone but yet the improvement is less significant when compared to the way that they were before.
The foremost step that needs to be taken is having a restructuring and a rebuilding process where all the viable elements of management need to be done so. Minimizing political influence, having strict systematic alleys to prevent money laundering and corruption along with the recruitment of strong hierarchical structure where the system of Sri Lankan cricket can properly monitor to take necessary actions. Implementation of a management system where every decision, action, and space that needs to be filled are visible must be the order of the day.
Having a proper domestic cricketing structure along with a solid base of school cricket will be vital for this rebuilding process. Limiting the number of teams in the domestic A division tournament and converting it into a more competitive league with the providence of proper space for school players to develop and to display their potential and talent is essential. If the cricket board can navigate a path to send some youngsters to play in high quality domestic leagues overseas, that will be a cherry on the top of the cake of Sri Lankan cricket for next-generation talent.
Having more resources in the likes of good coaches and quality crew besides the involvement of technology along with cricketing science will influence the Sri Lankan game.
Franchise cricket is a must for a country nowadays due to the impact it makes on the growth of a country’s game. Giving out opportunities for local players to have that exposure with international players will ease them to adapt to the international arena. For the seniors too, this will be important to keep up their form and help them to experience more competitive cricket. Another benefit is that it will open up is the opportunity to analyze and identify big-time players that comes along with this. This will benefit the preparation of game plans when they meet in the international arena.
Giving out equal opportunities to all the players will boost their morale, confidence and attitude to build up a strong squad rather than depending on a few individuals. Sri Lanka needs to follow this theory to bring out a more solid squad that will be full of confidence and this will guide players to work hard for their place in the team.
Another factor that needs to be considered is the quality of Sri Lankan pitches. The problem Sri Lankan cricketers have when considered for overseas games is their poor adaptation to the pitches. This happens heavily due to the use of batting-friendly pitches or spin friendly pitches in the domestic complex in Sri Lanka. This has caused numerous issues such as the batter’s poor performance on green pace pitches or flat pitches abroad. The spinners too struggle in those conditions due to their lack of experience that they have on those kinds of pitches. Fast bowlers also get a bad influence from this due to the obstacles they have on these pitches to expand their potential. We have seen this happen again and again in countries like Australia, England and South Africa where Sri Lankans have struggled. Even on proper spinning pitches, Sri Lankans do struggle to perform due to their lack of experience to perform on hard tracks. Having every kind of track with different conditions will be a key to sorting this out.
A system where senior players get equal responsibilities that they need to perform with the responsibility to guide the players around them while young players get popper opportunities for experience is essential. Having a plan for 10 years to work on with selecting capable players to accomplish the plan will help Sri Lanka to have long-term success.
Team balance is an essential factor to win a game of cricket. Recently Sri Lanka lost this jinx and that was way too obvious when probing into recent past game results precisely. Drafting a team with well-balanced players to win a game is what Sri Lanka needs and having a few utility players will help this course.
Cricket is a team game where you need a combined performance from each individual in the team to win a game. Sri Lanka is a bit sloppy with this idea where they prefer to rely more on individuals rather than work for whole team performance. This needs to be changed where an individual will not be concerned to win a game, where a team performing to a team plan gets the job done for the nation.
Involving more technology to analyze games and players to initiate tactics and player performance is also vital. Hiring a few more genuine professionals to make team plans and to train players will also be a fact that can be useful. Physicians to enhance endurance, video analysis to do analyzing proceedings, psychiatrists to sustain mental health and morale of players need to go hand in hand.
The Spirit of a game is in the capacity and endurance that each person has, to come top of their rivals. Believing in players by providing them trust and confidence is what requires to build up these kinds of qualities. Sri Lankan cricket these days are on a voyage for T 20 World Cup titles. The team has shown improvements in recent months and Dasun Shanaka is leading the ODI and T20 teams in a tactful manner than in the past while the Test team has also been improving under the captaincy of Dimuth Karunaratne.
Hope for this positive turnaround with the emergence of extremely talented and exciting players likes Charith Asalanka, Avishka Fernando, Wanindu Hasaranga, Lahiru Kumara and many more have been that light that Sri Lankan looked for many years through a tough time of darkness. Improvement of Team management is another factor that Sri Lankans can cherish with the involvement of former players in the management. Sri Lanka also witnessed a successful campaign in the Lanka Premier League (LPL) where players were able to experience some good cricket and it was a good exposure to every Sri Lankan. Bad times come and go but the better part is all the time it moves away and sunshine of success is ahead. Let’s hope Sri Lanka will find that sunshine to be filled with success and triumph.