The sad reality of Sri Lanka cricket is that a chief selector, Who promoted a political influenced player in a mediocre, below par domestic tournament, Will select the world cup squad!
Even though barely less than 50 days had left for the world cup, Sri Lanka is still unsure about everything. Forget about the team composition, even this is not clear as yet that who will lead the side in the Mega event. However, instead of focusing on selecting a proper squad, Sri Lanka’s Chief selector Asantha De Mel is busy in his other commitments.
His first priority is to establish brand Rambukwella.
On April 2, Cricket Age had published how Asantha De Mel mysteriously brought allrounder Ramith Rambukwella into the Dambulla Team for the provincial tournament, discarding one of the brightest young talent Sri Lanka cricket Ashen Bandara.
In last one week, Asantha De Mel tried every trick to promote Rambukwella further. In one of the provincial tournament match, Dambulla’s premier allrounder Jeevan Mendis was mysteriously rested (that too against his wish) and Rambukwella played the match. Jeevan Mendis has been in good form in recent times, with both bat and ball. As Sri Lanka is desperately looking for a spin bowling allrounder for the world cup, Jeevan Mendis could have claimed his stake for that place with a good performance. However, he was deprived for that chance, as chief selector Asantha De Mel was wanted to play Rambukwella, on the orders of his political guardians, Who gave him the hat of chief selector.
Now, the same Asantha De Mel, Who turned biased in a mediocre domestic tournament, Will select the team for World Cup!
Except for promoting brand Rambukwella, Asantha De Mel is also focusing on his new assignment as national Team manager, by ignoring his first job as chairman of selectors. According to sources, these days he is more concerned about his manager job, than his chief selector responsibility.
Insiders says that even though Asantha De Mel is reasonably OK in selecting test squads, he is completely out of sorts and clueless in selecting team’s for shorter formats as he doesn’t know much about current set of players strength and weaknesses in these formats. Few years back, he had included Lahiru Thirimane in a T20 world cup squad! This time again, it is almost certain that Asantha De Mel will make some of the worst decision as chief selector, to maintain his notorious track record.
