Champions face stern test to roar back in the absence of retired Sangakkara and Jayawardene
Published: Wed 9 Mar 2016, 10:47 PM
The beautiful Emerald Isle that is Sri Lanka still retains its old world charm with its quaint buildings and resplendent architecture. The same can be said of the country's sporting grounds and the rich culture attached to any form of sport.
Stride out to any part of Colombo, the capital, or Kandy, or even perhaps Galle, children will find a patch to play ball. And boy, do they love to play ball.
Sport is ingrained in their lives and although rugby still has its massive following in this little island, it now jostles with cricket, especially after a landmark 1996.
For a country, which lived under the gloom and the shadows of a long-standing civil war, their path to sporting glory has been nothing short of remarkable.
Considered minnows, Arjuna Ranatunga's boys shed that tag and showed they had well and truly arrived by clinching the World Cup.
The watershed year that was 1996 sowed the seeds for some of the best cricketers to grace the cricketing stage. They came close to replicating it in 2011 but it was not to be as MS Dhoni's men bled blue.
Sri Lanka notched another world title along the way, in the abridged format of the game-T20 in 2014.
And they return to familiar environs with the early stages of the ICC World Twenty20 currently underway in India.
They enter the competition, which criss-crosses across India, as the defending champions and that should be cause for optimism.
But that isn't the case. The Lankans are in the midst of a painful transition following the retirements of Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. It will be the first time in eons that Sri Lanka will be competing in a major world competition without these two stalwarts.
Like the civil war, Sri Lanka has also had to battle with politics, red tapism, and bureaucratic wrangles in their cricketing system. They have seen numerous interim committees come and go, seen numerous coaches come and go, and been witness to various confrontations between players and the powers-that-be.
And it came as no surprise that the very day that the squad was to board the flight to India, changes were made by the new band of selectors, appointed by their sports minister. The new selection committee is in good hands, so to speak, headed by Aravinda de Silva and has none other than Kumar Sangakkara as well as the man who reinvented batting at the top of the order-Romesh Kaluwitharana.
The new panel is at best a short-term measure, to correct the wrongs made by the previous committee.
De Silva and his associates got to work almost immediately by including Lahiru Thirimanne and Suranga Lakmal and out went wicketkeeper-batsman Niroshan Dickwella and leg spinner Jeffrey Vandersay.
Such quick fixes, just days ahead of a tournament, clearly isn't a good sign. Most international teams plan months or even a year in advance to find that settled squad that they are looking for.
So, these last-minute changes, doesn't speak very highly of a team, who will embark on a title defence.
Also, Jayawardene and Sanga's swansongs have left a huge and gaping void in their cricketing landscape. Apart from newly-appointed captain Angelo Mathews, Rangana Herath, Dinesh Chandimal and Lasith Malinga (if he manages to recover and does play a part), the others in the squad are still a work in progress and not yet the finished articles.
But, such is the format that Sri Lanka cannot be counted out just yet, even though their T20 record this year makes for a sorry reading.
But first, they have to negotiate England, South Africa, West Indies and a qualifier in their group.
Perhaps, a return to the very scene where they bested India 20 years ago en route to their 1996 triumph, could provide them the inspiration.
Sri Lanka begin their campaign against the Group B qualifier at the Eden Gardens on March 17.
james@khaleejtimes.com
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