Make or break series for Lanka (17 August 1999)

17 August 1999

Make or break series for Lanka

The Daily News

Sri Lanka will take on India and Australia in an all-important Triangular Cricket Series and later, a Test series against the latest one-day world champions - Australia.

These two assignments are vital for Sri Lanka's cricket future. It can be considered as a make or break series. Therefore, the Sri Lankan cricketers should be one hundred percent committed to bring good results. It's true that winning and losing is all part of the game.

What is commitment?

It can be defined as a thing one has promised to do, a pledge, undertaking.

Two words are very vital in cricket. i.e. mental toughness. To become a classy world class player this is an important ingredient. Added to it, there should be team-spirit. Without team spirit, individual brilliance will not help alone. Therefore, it is all important that every member of the team should rally round skipper Sanath Jayasuriya, coach Dave Whatmore and manager Chandra Schaffter to deliver the goods. We are not concerned about individuals, what matters is the team. "Country before self" must be the motto. Players must always maintain a very high standard of discipline on and off the field.

They must remember that the young schoolboy cricketers and future budding cricketers look up to them as role-models.

Self-confidence and concentration are two factors that will help perform well. You will give yourself a good chance of performing well, provided you believe in yourself and your ability to cope with any given situation and the demands that are place on you. Over confidence is bad and destructive to a team. In a tight situation, the player concerned must keep a cool head. Cricket literature and reading habit

I purchased the book titled - 'Aravinda My Autobiography' - Aravinda de Silva - with Shahriar Khan. (Main Stream Publishing, Edinburgh and London) at the Lord's Cricket Shop in mid June this year, during my assignment with SLBC for World Cup 1999. The price of the book was Sterling Pounds 15.99.

It's heart warming to see Sri Lankan cricket literature slowly taking shape. We hope that there will be many more book written on cricket in English, Sinhala and Tamil.

The Autobiography of Aravinda consists of twenty chapters running into 243 pages. There are a number of sentimental photographs of Aravinda from his childhood to the international cricket arena.

The language is simple, readable and interesting. It gives an indepth study of Aravinda - the master batsman. Aravinda must be congratulated for taking this bold step of writing his autobiography with Shahriar Khan.

In the good old days, about four and half decades ago, when I was representing Nalanda College First XI, I learned the game to a certain extent by reading cricket books. Reading cricket books become a habit even in the university. We were very fortunate to be the last English batch and this helped us immensely to widen our knowledge.

I still remember how I used to buy cricket books and cricket pictures at a nearby shop close to the Savoy theatre, Wellawatte, with the little pocket money I used to get from my beloved parents.

Today, things have changed. Even among Sri Lankan cricketers, I feel that the reading habit is poor. I have noticed this on many of my tour abroad. One Sri Lankan Test cricketer, whom I consider and remember as a vociferous keen readers is that unassuming, gentlemanly Thomian cricketer Kapila Wijegunawardena.

If my memory serves right, in September 1985, Sunil Wettimuny, the eldest of the Wettimuny brothers wrote a book titled 'Cricket, the Noble Art'. It too was interesting reading covering the history of Sri Lankan cricket and has chapters on greats both past and present. Written by one of the most technically perfect batsman it was of immense use to the students of cricket during the 1980s.

I feel that the chapter on captaincy in Sunil Wettimuny's books is very educative and would be of use to our present skipper Sanath Jayasuriya.

Remember, reading always makes a complete man.

Source :: The Daily News (https://www.lanka.net/lakehouse/)