Recently the a morning English Daily came up with (another) tasteless headline on their website, saying that Lasith Malinga had ‘abandoned’ his country. I was the type to use hashtags, this particular hashtag wouldn’t have an end to the expletives that would be necessary to describe that particular take on the facts.
This is what has happened.
Lasith Malinga, the captain of the Souther Express (which makes him sound a bit like a train driver) which won the off the radar Super 4’s competition sandwiched in between the England and South Africa series, would have been the captain to the Champions League Tournament which sees all T20 domestic champions playing each other. It is a sorry attempt to emulate the UEFA Champions League, but there you go.
Lasith Malinga is also a key player in the glamourous IPL side Mumbai Indians, who have also qualified to play in the Champions League.
According to the rules of the competition and the contractual clauses between Malinga and the Indians, he is allowed to CHOOSE which team he would represent if a conflict of teams such as this would present itself. Malinga has unsurprisingly chose the Mumbai Indians. SLC has not objected and everybody is happy. Except perhaps the petty minded nationalists, who somehow don’t see the blatant corruption and mismanagement in sport -all sport – as something unpatriotic.Idiots.
The Super 4’s competition was hastily put together, and almost went unnoticed. The Souther Express won the tournament which SLC had to play in order to have representation at the Champions League, so that they beleagured coffers can have something coming in. What the newspaper article which seeks to detract from the player also doesn’t say, is that SLC get fairly hefty compensation from the IPL franchise for the use of the Home Board’s player. This is probably likely to be more than the money the Southern Express will earn on its entire tour, or thereabouts.
From a cricketing point of view Malinga stands to gain much more by playing for Mumbai. Almost every other star player has shunned his Home Board and chosen his IPL franchise. I don’t know what this abandonment issue is. It’s manufactured adverse publicity. And sadly Sri Lanka sports fan are a gullible lot.
The Southern Express is not a symbol of national pride. It’s not a representative side. And most people probably didn’t even know it existed or what it was called. So the expected reaction from the usage of words such as ‘abandoned’ is a little ridiculous.
SLC though don’t seem to have too much of a problem with Malinga’s decision. Apart from this irredeemable headline, the furore when compared to Sangakkara’s similar malady a year ago, is very muted. We recall that when Sangakkara had to make this choice between Kandurata and the Sunrisers 12 months ago, he was called a ‘traitor’ and lengthy e mail battles were leaked to the press. In fact the pressure was so great, that Sangakkara eventually capitulated and represented the Kandurata team. The barrage of negative publicity was so great that even with his conscience clear, and reasoning sound, Sangakkara was guilted into complying with what was inaccurately and maliciously portrayed as a national cause.
Malinga will be thankful that he has not had to deal with such protracted, public sentiment on his patriotism. Not this time at least, as he has dealt with his fair share.
This treatment though, seems to warrant Sangakkara’s utterances that people in high places are bent on harassing him. The exchanges via the back pages last year were ugly, and completely inaccurate, against a player that has – with a little help from his friend – given Sri Lanka cricketing credibility. A player that is second only to Don Bradman in his post wicket keeping batting average. This sort of treatment warrants the strongest possible condemnation from the sporting public.
The fact that these players still turn out for their country, despite all these annoyances, and downright victimisations, is ample proof of their patriotism. If anyone thinks otherwise – they are fools.
