After analyzing one and half year of his tenure as Sri Lanka’s chief selector, one can assume that Graeme Labrooy is not against Lasith Malinga only, but is carrying a personal vendetta against many other players as well.
A medium-fast bowler of his time, who was capable of producing quality swing bowling, Graeme Labrooy had modeled his action on great Richard Hadlee. In his initial years, he formed a promising new ball partnership with Rumesh Ratnayake for Sri Lanka during late eighties.
Unfortunately for Sri Lanka Cricket, he faded away after playing only 9 tests and 44 ODIs, as he couldn’t replicate his performance too often.
However, Labrooy blames Arjuna Ranatunga for his curtailed international career. It is rather surprising, as even if someone Forget that he has won a World Cup for Sri Lanka, Ranatunga has been considered as one of the greatest leader of the game, only because he always had backed his players without any hidden agenda. With this unique leadership quality, Ranatunga gave Two all time great players to world cricket : Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralitharan. Without Ranatunga, world would have never seen Sanath and Murali. However, Labrooy has still that wrong belief that Ranatunga curtailed his career deliberately!
26 years after he last played for Sri Lanka, now Labrooy is a Chief selector. In 2017, he replaced legendary Sanath Jayasuriya and gave an impression that his selection committee would prefer transparency and non- Favouritism.
That same Labrooy has now ignored Chamara Kapugedera, Milinda Siriwardena, Seekkuge Prasanna and Hasitha Boyagoda from SLC local t20 league. 84 players will represent four team’s league, but these four players couldn’t find a place in any of the squad!
Just last year, Kapugedera had captained Sri Lanka ODI Side in one of the match against touring India. Now, he is not amongst Sri Lanka’s 84 top players! Agree that it’s entirety Kapugedera’s fault that he couldn’t achieve greatness, even after being considered as one of the most gifted Sri Lanka player of modern era! However, at the age of 31, and with an unique ability to hit sixes on will, Kapugedera still is far better than many those players whom Labrooy is fielding again and again in Sri Lanka’s t20 side.
Siriwardena, meanwhile, has completely been ignored by Labrooy, as soon as he took over as Chief selector. Under Jayasuriya chairmanship, Siriwardena emerged a good allround prospect for Sri Lanka and showed enough talent for the shorter formats. After the departure of Jayasuriya though, he lost his form, as Labrooy lost confidence on him!
Seekkuge Prasanna case is more curious. He is born to play t20 cricket, with his bowling, batting and fielding. He is a complete package for the shortest format of the game, with wicket taking ability with the ball and six hitting ability with the bat. Unfortunately, he has also found himself out of the favour now, even for domestic t20 league.
Boyagoda case is the saddest chapter of Sri Lanka Cricket. He is the best U19 cricketer in the country, but has no place in Labrooy good book. Insiders says that continues ignorance of Boyagoda is nothing to do with Cricket. Instead, the reason is that Labrooy has a personal anger against him as the ICC Match Referee cum LIC Agent Cum Player’s association President believes Boyagoda controversy during U19 world Cup earlier this year spoiled his credentials!
Selector on tour, Labrooy kept Boyagoda on bench for crucial group stage matches against Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to fit his favorite Santush Gunathilika into playing eleven. Later, when Boyagoda got a chance, he scored two hundreds, including U19 history’s highest individual score of 191, media questioned Labrooy’s intentions. Till now, he hasn’t forgotten that saga and is keep punishing Boyagoda. In that U19 world Cup in New Zealand, Prithvi Shaw also announced himself like Boyagoda. Just yesterday, Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar backed Shaw to play for Virat Kohli’s test side in England in remaining three matches. In Sri Lanka, Boyagoda has not found a place in local t20 league, where all his teammates Kamindu Mendis, Dhananjaya Lakshan, Ashen Bandara are playing!
The reality is that, Since smashing two hundreds in U19 world Cup, Boyagoda has given just one match in last eight months and that match was also washed out. He is just 19 year old, but already has down and out. People’s close to him told Cricket Age that he has already started to believe that Labrooy has a personal grudge against him and that’s why it has become impossible for him to get a chance at any level. Sadly, Labrooy has not been only destroying Boyagoda’s chances at senior level, he has also created an atmosphere, where people’s at SLC afraid to talk about Sri Lanka’s best U19 player’s future!
Not only Sri Lanka, now entire world Cricket knows that Labrooy has personal vendetta against Lasith Malinga. The truth is, he has personal vendetta against many other players as well! However, one can’t expect from a person like Labrooy to introspect, as even after 26 years he is living in denial, by falsely believing that Ranatunga destroyed his career!
