Arjuna’s regime was a mixed bag, good and bad in patches
Michael Roberts - Reporting from Australia
This is the second part of a two-part study of Arjuna Ranatunga in 1999/2000 and does not seem to have been aired widely in the Sri Lankan media, hence its resurrection today, May 2001.
Arjuna’s regime was a mixed bag, good and bad in patches From Michael Roberts This is the second part of a two-part study of Arjuna Ranatunga in 1999/2000 and does not seem to have been aired widely in the Sri Lankan media, hence its resurrection today, May 2001. My previous essay focused on Ranatunga the fighter in the face of Australian conditions. Most Lankans are fully alive to Ranatunga’s qualities as a batsman, though a careful study of his statistics would indicate that he has not turned his fifties into hundreds as often as he himself would have liked. Indeed, there is a drastic gap: only 4 hundreds against 34 fifties. But any evaluation of Arjuna Ranatunga the cricketer must also encompass his place as a captain.
His outward coolness, his sturdiness under pressure, is a quality that has been remarked on by many commentators. In overview, however, his regime has been a mixed bag, good and bad in patches. There was a long period from late 1995 to late ’97 when he led a remarkably successful team. The high point, clearly, was the series of striking victories that enabled the side to secure the World Cup in 1996. But this peak was followed by a dismal team performance during the World Cup in England in 1999. This low point was due to poor team selection, poor captaincy and the cumulative effects of the increasingly autocratic form of governance with which he was associated.
Arjuna’s regime was a mixed bag, good and bad in patches From Michael Roberts This is the second part of a two-part study of Arjuna Ranatunga in 1999/2000 and does not seem to have been aired widely in the Sri Lankan media, hence its resurrection today, May 2001. My previous essay focused on Ranatunga the fighter in the face of Australian conditions. Most Lankans are fully alive to Ranatunga’s qualities as a batsman, though a careful study of his statistics would indicate that he has not turned his fifties into hundreds as often as he himself would have liked. Indeed, there is a drastic gap: only 4 hundreds against 34 fifties. But any evaluation of Arjuna Ranatunga the cricketer must also encompass his place as a captain. His outward coolness, his sturdiness under pressure, is a quality that has been remarked on by many commentators. In overview, however, his regime has been a mixed bag, good and bad in patches. There was a long period from late 1995 to late ’97 when he led a remarkably successful team. The high point, clearly, was the series of striking victories that enabled the side to secure the World Cup in 1996. But this peak was followed by a dismal team performance during the World Cup in England in 1999. This low point was due to poor team selection, poor captaincy and the cumulative effects of the increasingly autocratic form of governance with which he was associated. Ranatunga had been publicly given more or less total control of the side for this occasion by Thilanga Sumathipala, the President of the BCCSL, and it could be said that the failures during 1999 occurred at a stage when Ranatunga’s influence in Sri Lankan cricket was at the most pernicious. There had been earlier indications of all this, however. I take them up in serial order, focusing in particular on team selection.
Captains do not always receive the teams they desire. Some observers believe that Ranatunga got his way in later years. This is too simple, though the World Cup victory in 1996 gave him great clout. In any event Duleep Mendis was the Chairman of Selectors for most of the period 1996-99 and was often Team Manager on most tours as well. Hence I propose to bracket this SSC combine together in the queries and criticisms that I raise below.
The first issue is whether there was familial favouritism in the selection of Dhammika Ranatunga and Sanjeeva Ranatunga for tours in the periods circa 1989-92 and circa 1995-1997 respectively. Both were capable enough batsmen, but were others more qualified pushed out in the process? On Dhammika my memory and knowledge does not supply enough information for comment. But it is widely known that Arjuna and the Team Manager for the tour of New Zealand, Stanley Jayasinghe, had a major clash when Dhammika broke his finger and his brother refused to seek a replacement. Here, the charge would be that team balance was sacrificed in the familial interest.
Sanjeeva’s emergence coincided with the period when Asanka Gurusinha was pushed out of the side in the course of a clash with the BCCSL. Whether this was coincidence or cause I am not in a position to say. Nor do I have the inside information to comment on the split between the BCCSL of that day and Asanka Gurusinha. But it was evident during the Australian tour of 1995-96 that Sanjeeva is a poor fielder. It is difficult to imagine that other young batsmen in competition for the same batting spot (a back-up batsman) did not have sharper fielding skills.
Apart from familial and SSC interests, then, it would seem that the Duleep-Arjuna combine placed less emphasis on fielding than advisable. And this is where they differed from Dav Whatmore. Three rotund figures, but having divergent views on fitness and fielding skills!
Overall, one can say that selection policy in the critical period from late 1997 to 1999 was marred by (a) several ad hoc arrangements that failed to give new prospects a series of matches before they were discarded; and (b) a failure to realise that one-day cricket is a young man’s game. The poverty of thinking on this issue was highlighted when Duleep Mendis returned from the debacle in England in 1999 and asked: “where is the talent?” – in effect arguing that they were justified in taking a team of older players to the World Cup because the youthful talent was lacking. Smart young men such as Chamara Silva, TM Dilshan and Indika de Saram have soundly shattered this reasoning during the last few series. How could Mendis and Ranatunga, watching the local games in 1998-99, have not spotted the capacities of these lads, none of them from Ananda or Nalanda? I wonder whether they can now see the egg on their faces.
While Atapattu was resurrected in the late-1990s, it would seem that either the selectors or Ranatunga did not nurture such contenders as Naveed Nawaz, Sajith Fernando and Russell Arnold adequately. Though Arnold was selected for tours of South Africa, West Indies and England, he appears to have received Cinderella-treatment. Ravindra Pushpakumara, too, does not seem to have been carefully groomed and encouraged. Likewise, Suresh Perera, though an SSC-player, has not been honed into an allrounder after he revealed the potentiality for such a role at the one-day level during the tour of UK in 1998. He was given limited opportunity by the team management (Ranatunga, Aravinda, Ranjit Fernando and Roy Dias) in Australia in 1998/99.
This latter tour, a one-day series, revealed Arjuna Ranatunga’s conventionality as a captain to the full. Shane Warne easily outshone Ranatunga and Stewart in the captaincy stakes. If you are in doubt, just listen to Ian Chappell’s remarks on television during the series. But even more damning in my view were the series of mistakes in team selection. Ruchira Perera was not given an opportunity early enough. Suresh Perera was obliterated. Thilan Samaraweera was selected ahead of Upul Chandana for the final game in Melbourne. And going to Perth for a must-win game against England and Australia, Tillekeratne was sent in after Atapattu at 3 on one occasion, while Mahela was kept back to no. 5 or 6. This was quite ridiculous given Mahela’s match-winning performance at Adelaide and capacity to keep the score moving.
Part of the problem here, and during the whole tour, was Hashan Tillekeratne. In 1998/99 we were seeing a different Tillekeratne to the one we saw in 1995-97, perhaps because of the injury he sustained in the West Indies. He was not keeping the score ticking over. Becalmed in several games, he slowed down the run-rate in the same manner that Rahul Dravid did for India in his early days and that Hasan Raza ‘achieved’ for his Under 19 Pakistani team during the crucial semi-final in the Under 19 World Cup in early 2000. Yet, Tillekeratne was given prominence in Ranatunga’s scheme of things in late ’98 and early 1999. From being in the wilderness in the year 1997/98, Tillekeratne suddenly became a blue-eyed boy and was even touted as a potential captain by those in the governing circles.
Prima facie one has reason to think that this was an instance of “ehemai hamu”, “yes, master.” Here, then we have indications of an autocratic regime and a scheme of leadership that favours acolytes. This is a cultural practice that is reminiscent of the manner in which “mudalalis” and “politicos” run their enterprises. But the cricket field is not a “mudalali-dom”. Nor is it a “mudaliyar-dom”. In this day and age both the elan and balance of a team is undermined by the practices of such bossmen and the “pandamkarayas” that emerge around them.
Unlike others I am pleased to see Ranatunga continuing in cricket. As a batsman I would have put him into the first team ahead of Mahanama and Tillekeratne in 1999. Ever the fighter he is clearly prepared to battle on. But Sri Lankan cricket cannot afford to have the style of leadership or the politics he displayed in 1999. If he returns to influence, he must place the interests of Lanka above all else. The return must be, to speak metaphorically, as a mature and chastened personality rather than bossman. Vindictiveness and chips-on-shoulders will only undermine the game we love in the place we love.
 
PS: This article was written before the Test series in Pakistan and the set of matches in Sri Lanka in mid-2000 proved my estimate correct. Both in the fighting innings with a broken finger that led Sri Lanka to a Test match victory in Pakistan and a brilliant hand against the South Africans at Kandy that nearly won the day for his team, Ranatunga demonstrated his capacities as a batsman. I only wish that I had witnessed the latter.