Post 1996 Power Politics

“… The World Cup brought less welcome changes with the start of detrimental cricket board politics and the transformation of our cricket administration from a volunteer-led organisation run by well-meaning men of integrity into a multi-million dollar organisation that has been in turmoil ever since.

“In Sri Lanka, cricket and politics have been synonymous. The efforts of Hon. Gamini Dissanayake were instrumental in getting Sri Lanka Test Status. He also was instrumental in building the Asgiriya International Cricket Stadium.

“In the infancy of our cricket it was impossible to sustain the game without state patronage and funding. When Australia and West Indies refused to come to our country for the World Cup it was through government channels that the combined World Friendship XI came and played in Colombo to show the world that it was safe to play cricket here. The importance of cricket to our society meant that at all times it enjoys benevolent state patronage.

“For Sri Lanka to be able to select a national team it must have membership of the Sports Ministry. No team can be fielded without the final approval of the Sports Minister. It is indeed a unique system where the board-appointed selectors can at any time be overruled and asked to reselect a side already chosen.

“The Sports Minister can also exercise his unique powers to dissolve the cricket board if investigations reveal corruption or financial irregularity. With the victory in 1996 came money and power to the board and players. Players from within the team itself became involved in power games within the board.

“Officials elected to power in this way in turn manipulated player loyalty to achieve their own ends. At times board politics would spill over in to the team causing rift, ill feeling and distrust.

“Accountability and transparency in administration and credibility of conduct were lost in a mad power struggle that would leave Sri Lankan cricket with no consistent and clear administration. Presidents and elected executive committees would come and go; government-picked interim committees would be appointed and dissolved.

“After 1996 the cricket board has been controlled and administered by a handful of well-meaning individuals either personally or by proxy rotated in and out depending on appointment or election. Unfortunately to consolidate and perpetuate their power they opened the door of the administration to partisan cronies that would lead to corruption and wonton waste of cricket board finances and resources.

“It was and still is confusing. Accusations of vote buying and rigging, player interference due to lobbying from each side and even violence at the AGMs, including the brandishing of weapons and ugly fist fights, have characterised cricket board elections for as long as I can remember.

“The team lost the buffer between itself and the cricket administration. Players had become used to approaching members in power directly trading favours for mutual benefits and by 1999 all these changes in administration and player attitudes had transformed what was a close knit unit in 1996 into a collection of individuals with no shared vision or sense of team.

“The World Cup in England in 1999 was a debacle: a 1st round exit.

“Fortunately, though, the disastrous performance of the team proved to be a catalyst for further change within the dynamics of the Sri Lanka cricket team. A new mix of players and a nice blend of youth and experience provided the context in which the old hierarchical structures within the team were dismantled in the decade that followed under the more consensual and inclusive leadership of Sanath, Maravan and Mahela.

“In the new team culture forged since 1999, individuals are accepted. The only thing that matters is commitment and discipline to the team. Individuality and internal debate are welcome. Respect is not demanded but earned. There was a new commitment towards keeping the team from board turmoil. It has been difficult to fully exclude it from our team dynamics because there are constant efforts to drag us back and in times of weakness and doubt players have crossed the line. Still we have managed to protect and motivate our collective efforts towards one goal: winning on the field.

“We have to aspire for better administration. The administration needs to adopt the same values enshrined by the team over the years: integrity, transparency, commitment and discipline. Unless the administration is capable of becoming more professional, forward-thinking and transparent then we risk alienating the common man. Indeed, this is already happening.

“Loyal fans are becoming increasingly disillusioned. This is very dangerous because it is not the administrators or players that sustain the game — it is the cricket-loving public. It is their passion that powers cricket and if they turn their backs on cricket then the whole system will come crashing down.

“The solution to this may be the ICC taking a stand to suspend member boards with any direct detrimental political interference and allegations of corruption and mismanagement. This will negate the ability to field representative teams or receive funding and other accompanying benefits from the ICC. But as a Sri Lankan I hope we have the strength to find the answers ourselves.”

Race Riots and Bloody Conflict

“I do not remember this momentous occasion as a child. Maybe because I was only five years old, but also because it wasn’t a topic that dominated conversation: the early 1980s was dominated by the escalation of militancy in the north into a full scale civil war that was to mar the next 30 years.

“The terrible race riots of 1983 and a bloody communist insurgency amongst the youth was to darken my memories of my childhood and the lives of all Sri Lankans.

“I recollect the race riots of 1983 now with horror, but for the simple imagination of a child not yet six it was a time of extended play and fun. I do not say this lightly as about 35 of our closest friends, all Tamils, took shelter in our home. They needed sanctuary from vicious politically-motivated goon squads and my father, like many other brave Sri Lankans from different ethnic backgrounds, opened his houses at great personal risk.

“For me, though, it was a time where I had all my friends to play with all day long. The schools were closed and we’d play sport for hour after hour in the backyard — cricket, football, rounders… it was a child’s dream come true. I remember getting annoyed when a game would be rudely interrupted by my parents and we’d all be ushered inside, hidden upstairs with our friends and ordered to be silent as the goon squads started searching homes in our neighbourhood.

“I did not realise the terrible consequences of my friends being discovered and my father reminded me the other day of how one day during that period I turned to him and in all innocence said: “Is this going to happen every year as it is so much fun having all my friends live with us.

“The JVP-led Communist insurgency rising out of our universities was equally horrific in the late 1980s. Shops, schools and universities were closed. People rarely stepped out of their homes in the evenings. The sight of charred bodies on the roadsides and floating corpses in the river was terrifyingly commonplace.

“People who defied the JVP faced dire consequences. They even urged students of all schools to walk out and march in support of their aims.

“I was fortunate to be at Trinity College, one of the few schools that defied their dictates. Yet I was living just below Dharmaraja College where the students who walked out of its gates were met with tear gas and I would see students running down the hill to wash their eyes out with water from our garden tap.

“My first cricket coach, Mr D.H. De Silva, a wonderful human being who coached tennis and cricket to students free of charge, was shot on the tennis court by insurgents. Despite being hit in the abdomen twice, he miraculously survived when the gun held to his head jammed. Like many during and after that period, he fled overseas and started a new life in Australia.

“As the decade progressed, the fighting in the north and east had heightened to a full scale war. The Sri Lankan government was fighting the terrorist LTTE in a war that would drag our country's development back by decades.

“This war affected the whole of our land in different ways. Families, usually from the lower economic classes, sacrificed their young men and women by the thousands in the service of Sri Lanka’s military.

“Even Colombo, a capital city that seemed far removed from the war’s frontline, was under siege by the terrorists using powerful vehicle and suicide bombs. Bombs in public places targeting both civilians and political targets became an accepted risk of daily life in Sri Lanka. Parents travelling to work by bus would split up and travel separately so that if one of them died the other will return to tend to the family. Each and every Sri Lankan was touched by the brutality of that conflict.

“People were disillusioned with politics and power and war. They were fearful of an uncertain future. The cycle of violence seemed unending. Sri Lanka became famous for its war and conflict.

“It was a bleak time where we as a nation looked for inspiration — a miracle that would lift the pallid gloom and show us what we as a country were capable of if united as one, a beacon of hope to illuminate the potential of our peoples.

“That inspiration was to come in 1996.”

Challenge Ahead for Sri Lanka

“Nevertheless, despite abundant natural talent, we need to change our cricketing structure, we need to be more Sri Lankan rather than selfish, we need to condense our cricketing structure and ensure the that the best players are playing against each other at all times.

“We need to do this with an open mind, allowing both innovative thinking and free expression. In some respects we are doing that already, especially our coaching department anyway, which actively searches out for unorthodox talent.

“We have recognised and learnt that our cricket is stronger when it is free-spirited and we therefore encourage players to express themselves and be open to innovation.

“There was a recent case where the national coaches were tipped off by a district coach running a bowling camp in the outstations. He’d discovered a volleyball player who ran to the crease slowly but then delivered the ball while in mid-air with a smash-like leap. His leap would land him quite a way down the pitch in the follow through. The district coach video-recorded his bowling for half an hour. National coaches in Colombo having watched the footage invited him out of curiosity a week later to come for formal training. The telephone call found him in a hospital bed tending a strained back as he had never bowled for such a long period as 30 minutes before in his life.

“Another letter postmarked from a remote village in Sri Lanka had the writer claiming to be the fastest undiscovered bowler in Sri Lanka. A district coach investigating this claim found the writer to be a teenage Buddhist priest who insisted upon giving a demonstration of bowling while still dressed in his Saffron-coloured robes. Cricket in Sri Lanka tempts even the most chaste and holy.

“On that occasion the interest in unique talent did not yield results. But the coaching staff will persevere in their search to unearth the next mystery bowler or cricketer who will take our cricket further forward.”

Sangakkara also spoke on the history of Sri Lanka, its cricketing roots, its identity crisis, Arjuna Ranatunga’s leadership, the search for unique players, the unifying impact of 1996 World Cup, the economic impact of being world champions, bigger roles for cricketers, the Lahore attack, a team powered by talent and cricket’s hightened importance in the new era.

Lecture text courtesy The Marylebone Cricket Club