The Sri Lankans should dedicate the historic series win against England to two people. One is Giles Clarke, the Chairman of the ECB and the other is Paul Farbrace, England’s Assistant Coach. Before the Sri Lankans arrived in England, it is these two men who gave them the motivation and inspiration for a memorable series win.
The Sri Lankans arrived in England angry and disappointed and several players spoke about their frustration.
There had been lot of planning done for the tour of England. The man who drew up most of those plans was Paul Farbrace. But having drawn up all those plans, Farbrace carried all the files to the ECB office. His defection to the England ranks, two weeks prior to the tour was one of the meanest things in the gentleman’s game in recent times.
Thanks to Farbrace, England had direct access to what was in Angelo Mathews’ mind. England also had first-hand information about Sri Lanka’s game plan and the pluses and minuses of all Sri Lankan players.
That fired up the Sri Lankans. They were a determined lot. Why Giles Clarke deserves credit to the series win is because he cut down the Test series to two.
From the day Sri Lanka recorded their maiden Test win in England in 1998, the ECB has hosted Sri Lanka for three Tests. But this time it was cut down to two. Clarke had taken one Test from Sri Lankan and given that to India. So, the Indians were going to play five Tests while Sri Lanka were playing only two.
The players were angry. One of them said, “look, the last time we toured England, we played three Tests and lost just one game. That was in the early part of the summer. But India lost all four Tests and scored 300 runs just once. That was in the latter part of the summer. Having done so poorly, how can you justify India playing five Tests and us just two? Don’t they consider how teams have performed when allocating these matches?” he queried.
Well, the times are different. The ECB under Lord Ian McLaurin and David Morgan were fair and gave the opponents their due. But the ECB under Giles Clarke plays by a different set of rules.
How you perform on the field is not a criterion in deciding how much cricket you play. India were given an additional Test because more cricket against India means more revenue to the ECB.
That ECB under Clarke is driven by money is no secret. In 2004, Clarke was a key figure as England’s home telecasting rights were sold for Sky for a sum of 220 million Pounds. What that means is that there’s no free to air live cricket in England. In June 2008, under Clarke’s leadership, the ECB signed a deal with Allen Stanford to play a series of T-20 cricket matches between England and a Caribbean side named ‘Stanford All Stars’. It was later revealed that Stanford defrauded almost £5 billion from investors and used his wealth to bankroll international cricket matches. Currently Stanford is serving a 110 year jail term.
The Sri Lankans will be extremely happy with the way they have performed on the tour. They won the one off T-20, recorded a come from behind win in the ODI series, before winning their maiden Test series in England.
In hindsight, by reducing the series to two games, the ECB denied their team an opportunity to try and level the series.
On a serious note, Sri Lanka’s coaches also need to be given lot of credit. For many years now, we have been holding the notion that we require the services of a foreign coach to do well internationally. But the current coaching unit that comprised Marvan Atapattu, Ruwan Kalpage and Chaminda Vaas has helped Sri Lanka to achieve something that no other coach from overseas has achieved.
It also helped sending the Test specialists early to England to acclimatize to conditions. The tactical input that Chris Adams brought in, giving tips on oppositions players and conditions also proved to be crucial.
Sri Lanka have slightly improved on their ICC Ranking. Prior to the Test series, they were ranked seventh and after the series win, they have overtaken New Zealand and currently are positioned sixth. England meanwhile, have come down to five from three. The upcoming home series against South Africa and Pakistan and the away series in New Zealand should be motivation for them to try and reach the top three.
