Sri Lanka’s most successful bowler legend Muttiah Muralidaran spoke animatedly about the need of a strong and genuine provincial system for Cricket at a media conference held to launch ‘Murali Harmony Cup 2015’ on Thursday.
“There is a huge difference between Sri Lanka club cricket and international level. We badly need to build a strong provincial system where players from every province get the opportunity to compete at a different level and prepare for international cricket.” Murali said.
He was first no-balled for “throwing” by Darrell Hair in the MCG Test in 1995 but he was well backed up by his then captain, Arjuna Ranathunga. The spin wizard still believes ‘Captain Cool’ transformed the face of Sri Lanka cricket. “My self, Sanga, Sanath & Mahela have all played under the guidance of Arjuna since 1993, which is the reason we succeeded but the current crop will struggle to find their feet for the next 3-4 years due to the lack of a proper provincial cricket tournament.”
“We have had provincial tournaments in the past but those were not conducted accordingly and regularly. I always wanted to play for my home province, Central but I was drafted into another team. I believe the players must be included in their respective home provinces’, which will attract more crowd and bring enthusiasm to the tournament.” Murali added.
Recently Mahela Jayawardene’s brought up a well-thought out proposal to develop domestic structure, bringing out the importance of having a provincial or a zonal tournament but several club cricket administrators have voiced against to the changes. This opposition to change has been a constant draw back to taking big steps even in the past and has hampered Sri Lanka’s progress greatly.
Kumar Sangakkara also commented on the issue of identifying players from North & East, “We need to first take cricket to all provinces. We must build proper infrastructure and new grounds for the players from North & East to unearth their talent and then hope they can compete with the big boys from the big cities. We cannot just bring them to Colombo and ask them straightaway to perform. It is a big process, which Sri Lanka Cricket should plan accordingly and initiate. We gained fame and success through cricket and our hope is to return something back. We don’t have to be administrators for that “
Sri Lanka Cricket interim committee vice-president and Chief Trustee of the Foundation of Goodness confirmed that they will be building an international cricket ground in Northern Province in the years to come, “We recently acquired 50 acres of land in North to build an international ground with all facilities. Hopefully in few years, we can conduct Murali Harmony Cup in that ground.”
