Discipline, Hypocrisy and Professionalism

It was the best of times, last week. And it’s not so good, this week.

If you haven’t read this story, then you should. It’s hilarious in its pettiness. http://www.dailymirror.lk/top-story/46172-mahela-and-slc-spat-leads-to-heated-email-exchange-.html

Michael de Soyza, the team manager, chides Mahela Jayawardena for his comments about Nishantha Ranatunga et al, and then gets a bit of a stinker from Mahela. Sanath who is copied on the mails feels the need to chime in and defend himself, justifiably or otherwise, the jury’s out. The messages go to and fro with snowballing hilarity.

Funnily enough, it gets leaked to the Daily Mirror. Which laps these things up with the enthusiasm of an alcoholic dog chancing on a puddle of vodka. Who leaked it? Probably not Mahela.

The biggest loser in this entire saga? Mahela Jaywardena. As unequivocally as he won the T20 matches for us during the World Cup, he has been beaten in this drama.

Just after the T20 World Cup and the now infamous press conference I sent MJ a text quoting a popular catch phrase, which says “Don’t argue with fools, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” I urged him not to dignify SLC with responses such as he made at the press conferences, aiming justify actions, which – to all cricket loving fans – needed no explanation. As usual, he clearly did not heed my advice 🙂

As far as the public at large goes, Mahela and Sanga emerged smelling of roses. Like Paul Farbrace, they should have quit while they were ahead, and it was a bad miscalculation to unearth the decomposing corpse of that disgruntled story. With a media ban in place till the end of the World Cup, Jaywardena would have been itching to say his piece. But like Shane Warne lured batsmen to their demise, SLC, through its sheer bloody minded pettiness, lured Mahela into public relations suicide.

One thing I agree with in De Soyza’s original e mail, was that MJ and Co.,should not have used the press conference to exchange gauntlets. “We won the World Cup, let’s partay”, would have sufficed, I think. As it has during a large part of his career, the heat of the moment, and the whiff of an opportunity to play through the covers, and Jayawardena couldn’t resist it. And has happened during much of his career, it was a false shot.

Sri Lankan journalists, don’t want to write about cricket. They want to write about every other fucking thing surrounding the game, but not about the game itself. So you can bet your bottom dollar there will be two questions on the final and a zilliion questions on irrelevant historical garbage, that only smells when you dig into it. Whatever grouse rightfully existed for MJ and KS, it should have been sorted out behind closed doors with the parties concerned. If not, Mahela is falling prey to the same unprofessionalism he accused his accusers of.

The public could have been offered an explanation – if it was deemed necessary, which I think it was not – as to how and why the ‘retirement’ was announced. It was a very compelling explanation, which showed that the entire thing was a storm in a teacup created mainly by the local media. Use of the hyperbolic terms like ‘betrayal’ fanned a non-existent fire and we have now ended up burning down the tallest tree in the forest.

The fact that the SLC committee – and I deliberately state that I do not categorise Sanath Jayasuriya, with this bunch – are a bunch of thieving sycophants is no secret. And it is unfortunate that Jayawardena could not walk away from their jibes, and their machinations. He has been badly counselled, if he has been counselled at all, in his responses.

It is also extremely untoward that Michael De Soyza has, after making his point which had a semblance of validity, gone on to attack Mahela’s conscience and his status as a gentleman. If these were indeed attributes of any standing in SLC, surely Michael De Soyza has several such e mails to write? Doesn’t he? The fact that he chose, or was ordered, to write it to the one person who least deserves it is telling. The denials of a ‘witch hunt’, don’t seem very credible to me.

There is no doubt a campaign is afoot to discredit both Jayawardena and Sangakkara. The latter has stayed shrewdly silent on the whole matter, and watched from the non-strikers end. Unfortunately Jayawardena did not do the same, and has fallen into the clumsy trap set by SLC.

It’s a bloody shame. That this is what our cricket has sunk to.