Sri Lanka’s new chairman of selectors former fast bowler Ashantha de Mel got down to brass tacks immediately when he said half-fit players have no place in his team.
“When we select players they have to be perfectly fit. You can’t take half-fit players. These are areas that we are trying to get over before selecting the team,” De Mel told the ‘Daily News’.
“We need to select the team quickly but without finding out details about the players and their fitness we didn’t want to rush it and do selections adhoc,” he said.
“Though they say the players are fit they are not fit at the moment, those are things that we have to work out. We spoke to Hathurusingha (head coach) and got some ideas from him. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we are having another meeting. He also has certain things in mind.”
The new selection committee’s first task is to pick the Test side to New Zealand. The Lankan team is scheduled to leave in the first week of December. The new selection committee comprising De Mel, Brendon Kuruppu, Hemantha Wickramaratne and Chaminda Mendis was appointed on Sunday.
Hathurusingha said that he had a meeting with the coaches yesterday to find out what they need to do to take the team forward.
“Our fitness levels also we must check. There are about 6-7 people looking after fitness. Being fit to run is one thing but being fit to bowl is another issue. These boys bowl only about 3-4 overs at practice. The coaches are saying it is new techniques and all that but at the end of the day you have to be bowling fit, you can run 10 kilometres but can you bowl 10 overs,” said 59-year-old De Mel who represented his country in the inaugural Test against England in1982 and went onto play in 17 Tests and 57 ODIs including two World Cups in 1983 and 1987.
Although his last stint as chief selector ended in 2013, De Mel said he has been following the game on television because of his love for the game.
“I watch a lot of cricket on TV and I keep in touch but not in the form of going to the Cricket Board. I feel the talent is there its only a little bit of fine tuning that needs to be done,” said De Mel. “Another thing is the confidence of the players they are not sure what they are supposed to do.”
“Making fifties and forties won’t get you a win there was not a single hundred in the England series whereas they had four. All these matches we could have won. After we got the thing in the hand we let it off. When we started playing Test cricket you could say we were inexperienced but now you can’t say that because we have played over 200 Test matches,” he said.
De Mel was particular about the Lankan fielding standards that have dipped to a low level from what it was some years ago.
“From what I have seen they don’t have even the basics. Pakistan had a bad time but now they are improved in their fielding. Indian fielding standards have also gone up. In one-dayers it makes a huge difference to get a run out or make a direct hit or take a catch. Generally the fielding standard is down from what I can see compared to other countries,” said De Mel.
“When Tom Moody was coach the fielding coach was Trevor Penney and our fielding was excellent. We must invest in a good fielding coach.”
De Mel said that he and his co-selectors were not there to pick holes on what has happened but to take the game forward.
“What we told Hathurusingha is that we are not trying to find fault with them but to see from now how to improve not go backwards, not try to find fault with people, that’s not our job,” said De Mel.
“As selectors our job is to be consistent and to be fair to everybody and do the selection without favouring anybody. We have to have some sort of an idea of what we want to achieve and go on that basis.”
De Mel who has been a selector since 1997 is now in his fourth stint as chief selector.
“I was not very keen on doing it, but they were stuck in a bit of a hole. It’s when they are in tatters they want me,” he said.
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