Abeysinghe highlights young talent in Sri Lanka’s succesful tour of South africa

Roshan Abeysinghe, in The Sunday Leader, 29 January 2012

Sri Lanka’s tour of South Africa is now history and many changes have taken place since. It’s once again a new beginning with the tour of Australia with a new captain and a new coach and a new selection committee. However it’s important that we revisit the tour again and understand how incredible the last two wins were. For starters it was done without Sri Lanka’s premier batsman Mahela Jayawardane which speaks volumes of the ability of the team. Further it is not easy to chase two scores of over three hundred and win two back to back games, particularly in view of the series standing at that point. It makes one wonder as to whether it was the same Sri Lankan team that lost the series! It also tells me that there is nothing seriously wrong with any individual or the group either. Then why did Sri Lanka lose under Thilakaratne Dilshan they may ask? Then the counter question is how did the very team under the same skipper win so handsomely? In the light of this ascendency of the team were the wholesale changes fair? Hasn’t the much criticised selectors adopted a good selection policy? And if so was it the correct decision to show Duleep Mendis and his committee the door? To a complete outsider, the questions are not easily answered though I am sure for many knowledgeable persons the reasons and answers for most of these questions should have occurred already. I shall not dwell too much on it though some of the happenings on the field seemed pretty questionable and obvious!

India, IPL and Twenty20 Vision

Michael Atherton, in The Weekend Australian, 28-29 January 2012

CRICKET writers these days think long and hard before they pass judgment on the Indian game. The Twittersphere is awash with examples of irate Indian “supporters” lashing out at perceived slights.  The language of debate is always unreasonable and often disgraceful, a reminder that out east, cricket is much more than a game.

So reader comments need to be understood in that context where Indian cricket is concerned, which made those underneath a recent piece on Cricinfo all the more interesting. “Way to go”, “decision to be applauded”, “positive step for the right reasons”, “good decision”, “fantastic move” were just some of the comments and then, revealingly, “it should always be your country first, and then the rest”.

Darren Sammy turns down Bangla T20 Offer for domestic cricket

STATEMENT FROM DARREN SAMMY RE BANGLADESH PREMIER LEAGUE

I wish to thank the Bangladesh Premier League and Sylhet Royals for the offer to join the inaugural BPL. I am both humbled and honoured by this recognition of me as a professional cricketer. I have discussed with my family and given much thought and consideration to the offer and regrettably I have informed the BPL and the Sylhet Royals that I am unable to accept it at this stage.

While I enjoyed playing cricket in front the enthusiastic and passionate Bangladeshi fans the BPL’s schedule clashes with that of the West Indies Cricket Board’s Regional 4 Day Tournament. Participating in the BPL would mean missing the first four rounds of the Regional 4 Day.

Kieron Pollard smashes 56off 15 balls in domestic cricekt

“There is more to come. 56 off 15 balls, not bad! The best is yet to come!”

With these words Kieron Pollard signed off after his amazing innings of 56 not out off just 15 balls Trinidad and Tobago had a record breaking win over Leeward Islands on the third day of the West Indies Cricket Board’s Caribbean T20 tournament on Wednesday night.

Pollard, one of the leading power-hitters in world cricket, went on the rampage. He smashed seven sixes – including five in one over off Anthony Martin. T&T rattled up 211-3 off 20 overs – the highest team score in the three-year history of Caribbean T20. They then dismissed the Leewards for 44 – the lowest score ever in Caribbean T20 to win by a whopping 167 runs – the largest margin in the tournament.

“Everyone is fully aware that I’m not at full fitness but I had a job to do for Trinidad and Tobago. I’m able to bat but I can’t run around in the field and dive around and obviously I can’t bowl as yet either. I’m still working to try to get up to 75 percent (fitness level). When I do there will be more to come. The best is yet to come!” said Pollard, who won the Star of the Match award.

Phoenix Ogilvy beats allcomers and snaffles ICC media rights for T20 championship in Lanka

 Irvin Weerackody

Phoenix Ogilvy Sri Lanka scored a major victory by beating leading global advertising agencies and international sports marketing companies to win the pitch for the upcoming Twenty-20 Cricket World Cup. The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced that Phoenix Ogilvy will be the official marketing and communications agency for the ICC World Twenty-20, 2012. The tournament will be held from September 18 to October 7, in Sri Lanka.

In a media release, the ICC stated that it had arrived at the decision after a lengthy selection process, where a number of agencies had submitted proposals. From these, five agencies were shortlisted to make their final presentations to the ICC and Sri Lanka Cricket officials in Colombo. Among the firms that vied for this prestigious business were JUT which collaborated with a consortium that included FidelisWorld, a Dubai-based international sports, entertainment and media company; Hayleys and Maxus Global Media. Teaming up with Grant McCann Erickson was Havas, a global agency specialising in sports and entertainment marketing. The other agency was Leo Burnett. Beating this formidable list of contenders was Phoenix Ogilvy, which emerged victorious.

ICC told that corruption extends beyond the field

Michael Atherton, courtesy of The Times and The Weekend Australian 17-18 december 2011

GIVEN the scandals that have enveloped the game since the veil was lifted on the activities of several players during the 1990s, it is only natural that when the word “corruption” is uttered, attention falls on the cricketers themselves. Transparency International, an organisation committed to challenging corruption worldwide, made an important contribution to clearing up some of those misconceptions this week.

Cricket is not the kind of playing field that TI normally steps on to, but it was encouraged to do so partly by the wide-ranging nature of the consultation over the ICC’s governance review that closed last week. TI released a number of recommendations for the ICC to consider before the publication of the review, the most important of which was to remind people that on-field corruption is just a small part – albeit the most damaging part – of the temptations that envelop the game as a whole.

Hollow vision embodied in ‘cricketainment’

Gideon Haigh, in the Weekend Australian 17-18 December 2011

“KFC T20 Big Bash League is the most talked about event in the country. Fans love their teams and families and kids of all ages pack grounds around the country. Dressed in their team’s colours, they come every week to watch the best T20 players on earth.”  “The Vision” for the Big Bash League, Cricket Australia’s new-fashioned domestic T20 tournament which began at the SCG last night, reads like rather a lot to do with the BBL, as though composed in half a minute by someone carrying on two telephone conversations at the same time (“Mate, have you done that ‘Vision’ yet?” “Sorry mate, I’ve been flat out. I’ll bash some crap out now.”)

 

It does, though, encapsulate CA’s sky-high hopes for what in a cricket sense is really old fast food in a new wrapper: more or less the same players as in the old domestic T20 tournament spread a little more thinly among eight city-based rather than six state-based teams, albeit sprinkled, like Colonel Sanders’ herbs and spices, with New Improved Warnie.

Aussie BIG BASH T20 cricket programme fails to attract big bucks

Peter Lalor, in the Australian 14 October 2011 under a different title

 NONE of the eight Big Bash League sides has attracted a major sponsor for the tournament, which kicks off in December, but one state has found a potential private investor and hopes to get board approval later this month.  The teams are struggling to attract sponsorships and have found a lucrative part of the market has been cordoned off by a recent CricketAustraliadirective that betting agencies cannot be naming rights sponsors or appear on playing apparel. Casinos are, however, acceptable on the cricketers’ coloured clothing as long as they do not “promote gambling”.

West Indies test boundaries of player power

Michael Atherton, in September 2011, referring to the West Indian squad visiting England for two T 20 Matches

When is an international not an international? This space offered the opinion last week that the one-day international in Dublin pushed the definition very close. With two players who had played for both teams, and one side putting out a second-string team, those who had been parted from their hard-earned well in advance of the selection of the England team were entitled to ask the question. It is one that may well crop up again at the fag end of the summer when a team going by the name of West Indies arrive here for two Twenty20 internationals. “Going by” is a suitable description in this instance, because they will be shorn of many of the names by which West Indies is associated in the minds of most cricket supporters.

Seven leading players, all of whom would be guaranteed a place in normal circumstances, have been omitted because of their commitments to the Champions League that takes place in India concurrent with those Twenty20 matches. So there will be no Chris Gayle, Darren Bravo, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Lendl Simmons, Adrian Barath and Ravi Rampaul.

World T20 for Sri Lanka next year– launch media event

 Courtesy of the Daily News, 21 Sept 2011 The ICC and Sri Lanka Cricket launched the WT20 Sri Lanka 2012 with a grand ceremony at the Ceylon Continental, yesterday. Reigning champion England will start its title defence at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on September 21 against one of the two qualifiers for the tournament. Stuart Broad’s side will complete its opening group commitments two days later against 2007 champion India at the same venue. Haroon Lorgat [CEO, ICC], Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka women’s team captain Shashikala Siriwardena, andUpali Dharmadasa, chairman, SLC,  at yesterday’s launch

Australia, chasing the one global trophy to have eluded them, will go head-to-head with the other qualifier in Colombo on September 19, part of a double-header that also features India and a qualifer. Sri Lanka, which lost toEnglandin the semi-final of last year’s tournament in the West Indies, will open its campaign against Zimbabwe under lights in Hambantota on the first day of the tournament (September 18) before taking on South Africa at the same venue on September 22.