Sri Lanka Cricket moves to stamp out chucking

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has introduced an island-wide coaching programme designed to stamp out chucking. The programme will see systematic and uniform coaching techniques employed across the country.

Jerome Jayaratne, the SLC's development manager, said that his committee was in the process of inviting coaches from all over the island to attend seminars based on cricket coaching which will include the latest techniques. Jayaratne said that one of the key areas they had included in the syllabus is eradicating throwers (bowlers with illegal bowling actions) from a very early age.

"It is a very serious matter and we want the coaches to correct them at a very early stage," said Jayaratne. "ICC's cricket operations general manager Dave Richardson, who had a look at the amended syllabus, was very impressed with it and took a copy of it with him.

"We have updated the entire Level I syllabus course for coaches which was about 15 to 20 years old. The syllabus has only been available in English. We have found that most of the out-station coaches and some from Colombo find it difficult to grasp certain definitions, Jayaratne told a media briefing held at the SLC headquarters on Wednesday. "To make them familiarise themselves we have decided to have the syllabus translated into Sinhala and Tamil also."

SLC's development director Duleep Mendis added that they hoped to have coaching centres in each of the provinces so that out-station coaches needn't come all the way to Colombo to upgrade themselves, as has been the case in the recent past. "We will equip these coaching centres with a library comprising the latest information by way of videos, VCDs etc, so that there is some sort of uniformity in cricket coaching throughout the island," said Mendis. "What is available to a coach in Colombo will also be available to a coach's out-station."

He added: "Presently, there is no uniformity in coaching and this is detrimental to the young players who are sometimes taught a batting stroke or bowling action in two different ways by two different coaches. We have also identified that some coaches simply force a team to practise for three to four hours nonstop if they lose a match, without getting down to the root cause of the defeat and trying to rectify it."

Mendis said this programme had been devised to educate the coaches at all levels from grass roots to national, and also to ensure that there is some sort of uniformity in coaching throughout the country. He said the NDC would hold coaching seminars at district and provincial level to achieve that.

He concluded: "We want to identify how many are into coaching and then grade them so that we can keep a track on the coaches and what they are doing."

The NDC has already graded 36 coaches, with the help of two of the best coaches in the country, Lionel Mendis and Rumesh Ratnayake. There are 18 coaches in the A grade, 11 in the B category, and seven provincial coaches. Mendis said the gradings in the C category has not been done yet because only 10% have been successful.

Malcolm Perera, the SLC's coaching manager, said in addition to the coaching programme there was a provincial tournament in the Under-14, U16 and U19 age groups going on at the moment. These teams, he said, were selected from district squads picked by the district selection committees. "The selection process is that the chairman of the district selection committee will be co-opted into the provincial selection committee. Each province will come under a national selector," he explained. At the moment the NDC is concentrating only on four provinces, and there are four members in the national selection committee.

Perera concluded: "We want to ensure that every child in the country gets an opportunity of achieving the highest level."