Sri Lanka- making a mockery of cricket?

The last match in the group A at the super eights stage of the world T20 world cup brought out something strange, in my opinion. Sri Lanka were in all probability into the semifinals, but not quite, and England had all to play for after West Indies had beaten New Zealand in a thrilling match which went into a super over. The strange thing was that Kumara Sangakarra captained the side even though appointed captain Mahela Jayawardena also lined up to take on England.

From where I was sitting, I did not see anything to suggest that Sangakarra was the man who was calling the shots when Sri Lanka were on the field. The explanation that was given at the toss was that the designated captain had lost three consecutive tosses, so why not try a change. That to me, is completely ridiculous. Cricket matches are not decided by what happens at the tosses. You have to play well for the duration of the match to win the match. The toss is merely there to start to the match. The better team on the field should win the match.

In all my years of watching cricket, I have never seen anything like that, the closest to this that I have seen is when Brian Murphy was the captain of Zimbabwe and dropped himself and handed Stuart Carlisle the captaincy when he thought he was not amongst the best eleven. In another example, in 2008 we saw Indian Captain MS Dhoni letting Sourav Ganguly captain the Indian team in the last session in his last test against Australia, but by that time the match and the series had both been well wrapped up. One both of these instances one could understand the logic and the sentiment behind the decision.

This, however, is totally different and I find it really hard to get my head around it. It is as bad as John Buchanan’s multiple captain theory that he had in mind for Kolkata Knight Riders in 2009 when IPL was held in South Africa. Thankfully, he aborted it.

I know Jayawardena and Sangakarra are good friends and no disruptions would have been caused in the team, but the theory on the face of it looks flawed. Conventional wisdom has it that you don’t want former captains in your team, as they could be one of those bad apples.

For me, it just comes up a little desperate that you would want to do something as dramatic as that just to win a toss, rather than concentrating on playing the game itself. It’s a good thing that they lost the toss, may teach them something.

I wonder what a Sri Lankan cricket fan or Sri Lanka cricket authorities think of this.