by Rex Clementine
Individuals running the national cricket team found a scapegoat following the recent disastrous World Cup campaign pinning all blame on poor fitness standards of the players. Skin fold tests and the two-kilometer run had been highly publicized when the selectors first introduced them. Anyone who failed these tests were made ineligible for selections.
However, the rules were changed when certain favourites of selectors failed fitness tests. Instead of them being ruled out of selections, a bargain was done and instead players got away with fines, a slap on the wrist.
With a new selection panel in place, it remains to be seen what they will do with fitness tests now that everyone is blaming poor fitness standards for below par performances.
Batting coach Naveed Nawaz and Fielding Coach Anton Roux during the World Cup campaign had highlighted poor fitness standards for the disastrous tournament. The fact that both had failed to address their own areas of expertise is a different story. Under Nawaz there were too many batting collapses while Roux proved to be a misfit to handle a national team as evident by the record 16 catches that Sri Lanka spilled during the World Cup.
Sri Lanka’s cricketers will be at Sugathadasa Stadium today to go through the two-kilometer run in the presence of the national selection panel and the coaching staff.
No matter how much emphasis has been placed on key aspects like fitness, unless individuals commit to the cause, we are not going to see improved results. There are so many factors for India’s excellent run-in world cricket at present and one key reason for their success is fitness.
It is not a case of the administration, coaching staff or the selectors imposing minimum fitness requirements on players, but one player’s initiative changed the culture of the entire team.
Virat Kohli took it upon him to raise his own fitness bar and unprecedented success followed his batting. Rest of the Indian team just followed suit before being told by anyone that the modern-day game is not for the fat and the unfit.
The culture within the Sri Lankan team needs to change and someone must lead from front if Sri Lanka are to get back to the glory days in the sport. The easy-going culture within the team at present is not serving any purpose and unless this issue is addressed we are going to see more humiliation for Sri Lankan cricket in the future.
You do find a lot of players with the right attitude but the moment they graduate into the senior team they become part of the ‘chilled out’ culture and as a result fitness, fielding and discipline all suffer major blows.