Keating: Why does the TCCB keep rejecting SL tours? (02 Oct 95)

The Guardian holds a brief for Sri Lanka cricket

By Reggie Fernando, our London correspondent.

One of Britain`s most powerful voices in the field of cricket _ Frank Keating of the respected Guardian newspaper _ in a strongly worded article states that the 13-year old snub Sri Lanka received from Lords can only be put down to money.

In the back page article title `Sri Lanka snub is just not cricket` which appeared last week Keating hands over many bouquets to the country`s cricketers and lashes out at the cricket moguls at Lords over the present state of play concerning Tests with Sri lanka.

The full article is published below:

Hooray for Sri Lanka`s tremendous and ultimately crunching series victory in Pakistan. Reports from Sialkot should have had the mandarins at Lord`s spluttering over their breakfast kedgeree and looking thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

It was Pakistan`s first defeat in a home series for 14 years. In six series, England have not won even a solitary Test match there since 1962. Nor can Lord`s pooh-pooh Sri Lanka`s achievement as one-off fluke, for they won a series in New Zealand in 1993.

Sri Lanka obviously have lovely cricketers not only to be relished but to be reckoned with. Yet the Test and Country Cricket Board`s condescension continues. Because the loveliest thing to Lord`s these days is lucre.

Since they played Sri Lanka`s inaugural Test match in 1982, England have deigned to play just one solitary Test on the island _ at Colombo in March 1993 when the full England side were soundly beaten.

Cash keeps the scoreboard clicking up the numbers at Lord`s. No profit, no play, no gain, no game. Work in the mission fields is now deemed wasted work. This avaricious attitude by the TCCB blights and bewilders Zimbabwe`s cricket too.

Why couldn`t England play a Test match in Harare on the way to this autumn and winter`s elongated tour to Lord`s beloved blood brothers of South Africa? Instead of ending the tour with its bloated marathon of one-dayers, why couldn`t the World Cup squad for the Indian subcontinent warm up against Zimbabwe? or Sri Lanka?

Because they won`t be able to bank so many bundles of boodie, that`s why.

Sandwiched between Sri Lanka`s quite criminally ungenerous allowance of two home Tests against England in all of 13 years have been three one-off Tests against England in England. Each one was full of delightful and often highly combative cricket from the visitors.

In the 1991 match, nobody in the crowd at Lord`s... which was pretty good, although not as gunwale-packed as the TCCB treasurer wanted will forget Aravinda de Silva`s majestic and undefeated little batting cameo on the second evening. He creamed DeFreitas, Lawrence and Lewis all round St. John`s Wood. Later that night De Silva forecast sadly (and correctly) that he wouldn`t last long next morning. "The motivation to get up once for a single one off Test is difficult enough: you cannot `pace`your game or the adrenalin; you see, I will be very tight when I bat tomorrow," He was.

Even so, I doubt if that technically was one the minds of the mandarins when rubbing their hands with gleeful greed, they arranged six Test matches against West Indies this summer. Why not the usual main series of five and one at the end of August for Sri Lanka? Why, not so much money in it, old boy.

De Silva`s innings for Kent in the Benson and Hedges final in July - matched all summer only by Brian Lara`s voluptuous glories _ might just have altered the routine curl of the lip and the toss of the head above the TCCB neckties when they realised it was a Sri Lankan out there.

It is not a two way loftiness. When England`s A tour in Pakistan was called off because of the Gulf War within 24 hours Sri Lanka had fixed up a game for them on the island and within 48 hours had arranged a full seven week tour. No problem, Most welcome.

The 1_year snub can only be put down to money. To suggest any other factor would be grotesque. The days have long gone since W.G.Grace was insufferably rude when he stopped off for a game in Colombo (hit wicket 14, and a sulk) 95 years ago. Or when Douglas Jardine, in the name of the MCC, threatened to walk off and abandon the game at the end of his Indian tour in 1934 because the crowd was barracking his batting.

He cabled back to Lord`s that the explanation lay not in his patrician sneering but because "lunatics from the asylum had been let out to witness the proceedings."

Faraway Lord`s probably believed their patronising captain, but the official history of Sri Lanka cricket by S. S. Perera, was later to note "The name of D. R. Jardine has been cut out in the island` history. Anyway through all his snobbism and arrogance, the sides that played against the Englishmen displayed great sportsmanship."

Which they still do with great cricket to match.