The "silly points"

A letter from Incredible Shoaib

Subject: TO THE URGENT ATTENTION OF THE EDITOR!!!
To: prabath@unl.upali.lk
CC: sports@upali.lk

I am writing in response to an article in the sports section of your newspaper (17/4/2008) titled ‘Pressure Mounting on Mahela’

I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IF YOU WOULD KINDLY PUBLISH THIS LETTER OF MINE IN ITS ENTIRETY IN YOUR ESTEEMED NEWS PAPER!

I am based overseas and tend to read your paper on a regular basis and have found two aspects of countless number of articles written about our cricket in your newspaper to be nauseating and that mind you will be me putting it politely!

I wonder whether Mr. Rex Clementine has ever held a bat in his life or seen how one looks like. Your newspaper has in my humble opinion had two hidden agendas when writing about the state of our cricket;

A. To have a go at Mahela Jayawardena at every possible opportunity.
B. Support that useless Upul Tharanga at every given opportunity.

First about Jayawardena. Anyone with an ounce of cricketing knowledge would agree with me that Jayawardena has had a good run as Captain and more importantly lead from the front with his batting form which has been impeccable since the time he took over as Captain. His Test batting AVG has been 72 since becoming the Captain of the side in May of 2006 and in the same period his one day batting AVG is 40, both significantly higher than his career AVGs. His record as Captain is also impressive with 9 wins in the 17 Tests that he has lead the Country since taking over and that includes Test wins in England, New Zealand and the West Indies. In the One day arena the Sri Lankan team has won 30 of its 56 one day internationals under the leadership of Mahela Jayawardena which of course included Jayawardena’s efforts in leading his team to the World Cup final last year. Unless one is suffering from a chronic case of memory loss none will ever forget that brilliant hundred he scored against New Zealand in the semi-final.

So in a nutshell, in the nearly two year period since taking over as Captain, Jayawardena has a winning record in both forms of the game and in the process also lead his team to the World Cup final and lost only one away Test series (against Australia) while managing to draw the series against ENG, NZ and the WI with the latter being our Country’s first ever Test win in the West Indies. On the personal front his Test batting AVG and his One day batting AVG is significantly higher than his career AVGs in both forms since becoming Captain of the side. Despite this your so-called sports journalists are calling for his head just because we have had a bad run in the last ten months or so.

The absurdity of your newspaper only gets worse with its utterly ridiculous support of that good for nothing Mr. ‘Outside Edge’ Upul Tharanga. This bloke should have been thrown out of the side a long, long time ago but due to the obvious support of some higher ups in Sri Lanka ’s cricketing hierarchy he still finds a place in the side despite his abysmal form over the past 15 months or so.

Tharanga AVGs just 23 with the bat in the 32 games he has played since the 1st of Jan 2007. His performance that you speak so highly of in the second one dayer against the West Indies, was one of the most embarrassing innings I have ever seen, having followed the game very closely for many years! It was despicable to see him miss as many balls as he did and he faced 12 of the first 20 overs and was unable to score and the majority of the runs that he did score were thanks to his usual scoring methods which are off the inside and outside edge of his bat. If there is anyone out there who gave your newspaper the benefit of the doubt, surely after seeing how you shamelessly support a bloke like Tharanga and sing praises of this horrendously ugly innings of his in the second one dayer, will now be convinced 110% about your newspaper’s ulterior motives in supporting the lad from the ‘South’

Leave your personal biases aside and write some sense when you do write about cricket or anything for that matter. You have a responsible job to do and don’t waste it in an effort to further your ill-advised personal agendas.

One last point about the team’s captaincy issue, I have from day one felt that Kumar Sangakkara was destined to lead our Country and that is not because of incompetence on the part of Mahela Jayawardena but rather because guys like Kumar Sangakkara are born leaders and to have them in any other capacity other than leading the team is and would always be a waste in my humble opinion!