Dear Sanath, Stop the impending rot in Sri Lanka Cricket
*Please accept my heartiest congratulations in your appointment as the Chairman of the Selection Committee.
* You richly deserve this job as your contribution to Sri Lanka Cricket is second to none. But you have a big task to clean up the place. Although we have some temporary success in the T20 and 50 over ODI’s, the future appears to be doomed after Mahela, Sanga and Dilshan gives up. Although we have a lot of young batting talent in Chandimal, Kusal Perera, Dimuth Karunaratne and a few others, they need a lot of exposure at the highest level to be able to be selective in their shot making. Now they take a lot of risks but with more experience they will be more selective. But SLC has vrtually denied these youngsters of experience by cancelling several Test tours. I was really impressed by these 3 players as their reaction time was so good and they were very quick to judge the length of the ball etc. I need not tell you these things as you know them much better than I do. I can remember you got the exposure and showed your talent when you toured Pakistan as captain of the “B” team in 1989 and scored 2 double hundreds and then again you toured South Africa as captain of the Under 23 team and scored 2 hundreds. After these tours you were a regular in the team. Now, please see that these boys get the same exposure you got so that with experience, they could correct their small mistakes. There should be more “A” and “B” tours as well as regular under 19 tours. Otherwise we are letting down the large number talented youngsters. Now that you are an Government MP, you should be able to persuade one of the state Banks to loan the money required for the abovementioned tours.as the SLC is supposed to be bankrupt. My opinion is that the SLC has failed miserably to deliver the goods. They have also made the SLC bankrupt. You dont play World Cup matches in your country and end up with a collosal financial loss. This is ridiculous. I served the BCCSL for over 25 years and I can remember I even paid my typist and Peon in the CEB for typing and cyclostyling etc. out of my pocket ,when I was Secretary fron 1973 to 1976 as we had no office then. It is the love of the game that even at 83 years I keep hoping that I will be alive to see the winning of the next World Cup (even on TV) as we did in 1996 in which you were outstanding and where I witnessed both the Semi final in Calcutta and the final in Lahore .
With best wishes and hoping that you will put Sri Lanka Cricket back to the place it deserves to be.
Neil Perera.