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by Sa'adi Thawfeeq

After much chopping and changing, a four-man national selection committee headed by former Sri Lanka captain Michael Tissera is finally in place bringing to an end a week of speculation from the media, all of whom had their own list of selectors.

What this entire hullabaloo reflected was that it was an easier task to pick the Sri Lanka cricket team than trying to name a panel of selectors.

The sudden change to the selection committee was forced upon the Sports Minister by the manner in which the team was picked for the second cricket Test against Zimbabwe at Kandy, where there was a great deal of hard feeling and tension between the team management and the selection committee after they (the selectors) decided to leave out the vice-captain and a young fast bowler with the objective of introducing new talent into the Test side.

The objective of the former selection panel was good, but the way they went about accomplishing that and the time they chose to do it was all awry.

The Sports Minister in finalising the new selection committee from the names submitted by the Cricket Board's interim committee went on record in the press saying: "I hope the fresh members of the selection committee under Michael Tissera will do a better job, selecting the right players.

They should be watching cricket".

What the Minister is indirectly implying is that the previous committee had fallen short of the standards expected of them in picking the team for the Kandy Test.

What turned out to be an unsavoury incident could have easily been avoided had the selectors (having failed to convene a meeting in Colombo before the team took off for Kandy), taken the trouble to come to Kandy and finalise the team with the captain and the team management, rather than pick the side from Colombo and convey their decision over the phone to the captain, who was unhappy with their choice.

The worst thing that can happen to a national team when they are on the verge of ensuring the Test series is to have a group of unhappy and grumpy players taking the field on the morning of a Test match.

That saner counsel prevailed and the captain was able to finally have the team of his choice saw the Sri Lanka side go out and thrash Zimbabwe inside four days by an innings and take a winning 2-0 lead in the three-match series.

Having got through that hurdle, the selectors had the option of experimenting with new players for the final Test at Galle. But before that could happen, the three selectors who were for changes at Kandy, resigned honourably. But two remained, which forced the Minister to remove them as well. He described the change as 'it is not fair to allow them to serve in the selection committee following their controversial decision'.

The new committee which has its term running up to the end of April has the task of picking teams for the Asian Test championship final against Pakistan for which a date and venue has yet to be finalised by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), the four-nation one-day tournament in Sharjah (also featuring Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand), the three-Test series in England and the Sri Lanka 'A' teams for a tour here by Kenya later this month.

The committee has a wise head in Tissera who has served in this position before and, three past Test cricketers in Mahesh Goonatillake, Don Anurasiri and Roger Wijesuriya, who we are sure will do their utmost to ensure the players are kept happy, but at the same time, ensure they carry out their tasks as expected by the committee.

It would have certainly taken the interim committee a lot to convince Tissera to take up this thankless job, to which he is all too familiar with. He is a strict disciplinarian and one can be assured that there won't be any hanky-panky in team selections with him around. In fairness to the previous selection committee headed by Tikiri Banda Kehelgamuwa, a former fast bowler in the pre-Test era, it must be said that upto the point of the Kandy Test where their amateurish handling of the selection cost them their posts, they did a fairly decent job despite a few hiccups.

Kehelgamuwa's selectors were a bit too far away from the players, failing to have a constant close dialogue with them. The communication gap between them and the team management widened as a result.

However, on the positive side, there were some shrewd selections made by the recall of Hashan Tillakaratne and the introduction to Test cricket of players like Kumar Sangakkara, Dilhara Fernando, Tilan Samaraweera and Buddhika Fernando, and the recall of Kumar Dharmasena to the one-day squad, all of which paved the way for Sri Lanka's rise in the ICC Test rankings to number three in the world after Australia and South Africa and four in the one-day rankings after Australia, South Africa and Pakistan.

Kehelgamuwa and Brendon Kuruppu served the committee the longest having been members since 1999. Kehelgamuwa then succeeded Sidath Wettimuny as chairman a year later. Brendon Kuruppu, Kapila Wijegunawardena and Amal Silva, all past Test cricketers and K.M. Nelson, a former first-class club cricketer were the other members of the previous committee.

At least they deserve a big thank you for the service they rendered during their term of office.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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