S Rodrigopolle: Sri Lanka selectors cynosure of all eyes (17 Feb 1998)

Tuesday 17, February 1998

Cricket selectors cynosure of all eyes

Elmo Rodrigopolle

In the coming weeks the cynosure of all eyes will be the Sri Lankan cricket selectors headed by Duleep Mendis (who is also the manager of the national side) who are to pick the team for the tour of South Africa beginning next month.

At the outset we must stress that the job of the selectors is certainly not an easy one. No selections ever made, not only in sport in Sri Lanka but the world over ever comes in for unanimous accolade.

The selectors too when they sit to pick a squad realise that their job is an unenviable one. They will take the playing conditions, the wickets, the opposition and every other thing connected with the tour when pencilling their tour team and endeavour to pick the best that will meet the situation.

Yet there are the cyclops whose job it is to pick holes, and holes they will pick to sling mud at the selectors. While the selectors will welcome constructive criticism, it is not cricket to lynch them with criticism that is destructive.

Critics when they pull their pistols out and aim at the selectors, must remember that if they disagree with the selectors, they must be able to provide the alternative choice.

And criticism where selections are concerned will be well received if it comes from those who have played the game and know what they are talking about.

At times there are critics who try to tell the selectors what to do not knowing a bat from an elle stick. These are the critics who are not only at the but end of hilarious laughter, but are also a slur on those who have played the game and know what rapids selectors have to swim against when picking a team.

It is apparent that conditions and wickets in South Africa will favour pace bowling. Sri Lanka is not lacking in this department, although all pacemen are not as penetrative as left armer Chaminda Vaas. Ravindra Pushpakumara, Sajeewa de Silva and Pramodaya Wickremasinghe are certainties, with the news that promising paceman Nuwan Zoysa is still not fit enough to undertake this hardous tour.

Considering the tearaway pacies that the South Africans will unleash in Allan Donald, Brian McMillan, Lance Klusener and Shaun Pollock, with the possibility of Fanny de Villiers and Bret Schultz also making a comeback, the Lankan pacemen will be firing blanks.

But our pacemen will not lack for want of trying and if they concentrate on line and length and make the batsmen play every delivery, we see no reason, why although they will be lacking in pace they should not make batting a nightmare for the Proteas.

The dropping of one of the best fast bowlers in world cricket today, Wasim Akram has quite rightly stirred a hornets nest in Pakistan. Other cricket playing nations too are surprised at Akram being dropped apparently for reasons of match fixing.

Some say that he was dropped for lack of fitness. Both reasons don't hold water and the right thinking cricketing circles are convinced that he has been dumped on a personal vendetta.

Akram's dropping takes away the muscle from the Pakistani line up now struggling to front up to the South Africans. With Waqar Younis, Akram formed a dreaded pair of opening bowlers.

With Akram out, Waqar is struggling for support and he is not the bowler he would have been had Akram fired from the opposite end.

Pakistan's loss is South Africa's and Sri Lanka's gain. That is because batsmen on both sides will be able to play more freely now that Akram's swinging thunderbolts will not be fired at them.

How an allrounder of Akram's calibre can be sidelined, only those who plotted his removal can explain.

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