Sri Lankan flavour at MRF Pace Foundation

At the inauguration of the National Cricket Academy in May, Rodney Marsh declared that "cricket is a game of sharing; sharing ideas, sharing friendship among different cultures. The important thing is that the game continues to thrive". The Sri Lankan presence at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai illustrates the flourishing ties across national boundaries among the coaching fraternity.

Rumesh Ratnayake, the spearhead of the Sri Lankan attack in the latter half of the eighties, and Champaka Ramanayake, another fast bowler who served Sri Lankan cricket with distinction, are in Chennai along with three rookie fast bowlers. Sri Lankan trainees cross the Palk Straits three times a year, in January, June and September, to visit the Foundation in a relationship that dates back to 1992. According to Ratnayake, while the infrastructure in Sri Lanka in good, the distinctive feature of the Foundation are the practice pitches. "There are wickets of all kinds here, one is slow, one is semifast and the other two are superfast."

Omesh Wijesiriwardene, Charitha Buddika and Chanaka Welagedera are here for two weeks under the watchful eyes of Dennis Lillee. The morning sessions focus on fitness; both aerobic and anaerobic training as well as yoga and stretches. The afternoons are confined to bowling practice with video analysis of the trainees carried out thrice during the camp. The three youngsters belong to the Sri Lankan Cricket Board's fast bowling academy at Colombo where Ratnayake is one of the coaches.

Sri Lanka has produced an assembly line of handy quick bowlers in recent years, as against just one spinner of quality in Murali, and many of them have been to the Foundation before moving on to greater things. Among them are the very nippy Ravindra Pushpakumara, who presently finds himself out of favour with the selectors, and the promising Dilhara Fernando. "I would think he is the fastest in Sri Lanka, he's a front-on bowler, a very strong lad with a lot of potential", said Ratnayake about Fernando who made a good impression on the recent tour of South Africa. His senior colleagues Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Zoysa were disappointing but Ratnayake felt they would be back. "Vaas and Zoysa were not in peak health. They were suffering from minor injuries and not bowling at their best."

Mental strength was one of the skills where subcontinent bowlers lagged behind, felt Ratnayake who took 73 wickets in 23 Test appearances until a shoulder injury blighted his career before he turned 30. "Mental skills are very new to this part of the world. The South Africans and Australians are very strong in this aspect". Ratnayake suggested that visual stimulus was very important for the player. "He has to visualise himself bowling in a match situation and imagine the response of the batsman. Even if he is hit for four, he has to picture bowling the next ball in his mind, not think about the previous delivery."

Asked what he believed goes into the making of a good coach, the 37-year-old Ratnayake quipped that he was still trying to find out himself. He stressed that a coach had to be a well-rounded personality. "A good coach needs to be there all the time for his boys, he must be a friend, recognise the faults of the players and what is needed for each player at the right time. People can come into a comfort zone and not perform, even good players. A coach must be able to recognise all these things, whether each one is performing to his ability, and of course he must be tactically sound." Seems like a mouthful but Ratnayake is better equipped than most to comment. Apart from his role in the BCCSL academy he has also coached a first class team for the last eight years. The Premier League, Sri Lanka's domestic first class competition, started earlier this month and he will soon rejoin the quaintly named Nondescripts Cricket Club. Not that Ratnayake himself is one anyway.