Time for Ranatunga to step aside (29 May 1999)

29 May 1999

Time for Ranatunga to step aside

Trevor Chesterfield

LONDON - If you listen carefully enough to the pavilion gossip there are about a 1001 reasons why reigning champions Sri Lanka are heading for first round oblivion in this year's World Cup, and none are complimentary.

Which is not too surprising for a side arriving full of false confidence about their batting and over-blown pride in their ability and it continued as they lost their way in their warm up games where rain restricted their need for a good practice. Moderate to mediocre performances saw them arrive at Lord's for the first match with their rotund captain, Arjuna Ranatunga, cocky and arrogant and with a bloated ego.

Now he is blaming the selectors for the defeats. Which is a bit of a cheek for as the captain of the World Cup champions he should have had the same input this year as he did in 1996; then he had Dav Whatmore, as the coach, the team's mentor and guide. But he had to blame someone to shift he focus, if not the heat, from himself.

Ranatunga has been blundering around England since the team's arrival; a clumsy all-rounder who should step down and hand over the leadership to someone who can help rebuild the team and the nation's pride and before the side develops a schizophrenic character.

Problems started the day before the opening game against England at Lord's. Selection errors and juggling around with the line up cost them their one true consistent batsman in the limited overs international scene this year with Mahela Jayawardene overlooked for Roshan Mahanama. And with Muthia Muralitharan carefully worked out of the attack by Graeme Hick and Alec Stewart, two of Sri Lanka's main props in making any last impression in this tournament had been kicked away.

So far they have managed to beat Zimbabwe and tomorrow should pick up their second when they play Kenya at Northlands Road, Southampton, where Barry Richards and Gordon Greenidge, now coach and mentor of Bangladesh, once paraded their batting skills with all the assurance of the world class players they were.

There are those who would suggest that Zimbabwe's first fissures of self-doubt appeared at Worcester where their ability at New Road was not, if you listen carefully to their coach Dave Houghton, what it was cracked up to be. They also did what South Africa have of ten accused of doing - being asphyxiated by their own efforts.

In between the two games Sri Lanka ran in to the sort of explosive batting few will forget. For the already tarnished champions it was a nightmare; Ranatunga blamed it on the creation of his bowlers' inability to land the ball in the right place. In reality, they was savagely manhandled by two brilliant in-form batsmen; Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid who launched the sort of blitz which turns the limited-overs slogs into a one-sided spectacle.

Just the sort of display which forces the bowler to deliver more into the batsman's arc, hence Ganguly and Dravid's total dominance. It was not so much a matter of shot selection but nomination of where they anticipated the ball to be; a succession of long-hops, low full-tosses and anything which was hittable did not help much either.

Which is what they did. There is, of course, a difference; subtle but clever; such as there is in the differentiation between skill and potential. Ranatunga did nothing to try and curb the batting exploits by switching the bowling attack; when he did it was far too late; the fielding, too had lost the stomach for the job and any attempts to cut off boundaries became an odious chore.

Naturally the portly Ranatunga, who normally fields at either mid-off or mid-on and therefore does not have to leg his way too much around the inner ring, refuses to accept he is responsible for Sri Lanka's demise or their fall from popularity. Three years ago they wore the sort of hero labels which underdogs who come good, are inclined to show off; 'Little guys come first'; 'The cubs who roared'; or 'How the humble humbled the mighty'.

How different to the image of May 13 when, one the eve of the event at Lord' s when he quipped with a certain overblown bravado at the post nets conference; "I am here only because I want Sri Lanka to win the World Cup." Hours after the debacle at Priory Lane, Taunton, the team's manager, Duleep Mendis, said the team was facing disgrace, that the nation had expected much more than the side had given.

Yet, from that opening match at Lord's there were telltale signs of divisions and psychological problems in the side. You could feel it; heavy and depressingly real. The side which had been so universally popular had lost touch and the captain the thread of the plot. He absolves himself from the blame of the defeats in this tournament, accusing the selectors of miscasting the side.

It is an easy enough escape route; blame everyone but yourself; politicians are good at such tricks. Surely the captain and the selectors consult each other about the side to be selected?

There is little doubt that there are a number of promising players, whose careers were being shelved because they did not fit in with Ranatunga's Worlds Cup plans. Now they are waiting for him to retire and allow the nation to recover a lost pride under willing leadership of a younger man with fresh ideas.

Tomorrow they face their final game, although the two points they should collect will too few, too late. Unless of course, Kenya can pull off another West Indies style stunt which would be the ultimate humiliation.

Source :: Trevor Chesterfield