Wrote a blog a few week school back about a number of Sri Lankan players who have put in decent shifts for the U-19 team a single well as the Development Emerging Team but werent being given the opportunity to press on.
I have been proved wrong by today's announcement of the Sri Lanka squad where three of these names have been thrust into the limelight: Lahiru Kumara, Lahiru Milantha and Sandun Weerakkody.
I expect big things from these three. I paste the original blog below for more details.
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National cricket associations now have an inbuilt hierarchy which allows curious kinks to emerge within their set up. Take Sri Lanka for example. In order of importance you have:
Sri Lanka Senior Side
Sri Lanka A
Sri Lanka Development Emerging Team
Sri Lanka Under-19s.
The advent of the Development Emerging Team as a concept is a fairly new fangled one but has been adopted by Sri Lanka, Australia and South Africa - albeit under the guise of slightly different names.
The curious situation is that the two least important teams have been playing far better cricket of late than their more senior cousins. To add a further level of confusion, the Sri Lanka A side that is currently playing against West Indies A contains a number of senior Sri Lankan players. Despite this they are still not playing particularly well and lost the second unofficial test this week. There have been no stand out performances or notable players that have impressed me in either of these games.
Wind back to the Summer when Sri Lanka Under-19s were touring England and the Sri Lankan Development Emerging Team were playing a quadrangular series with a South African Development Team and two Australian development teams (don't ask.) There were stand out performances aplenty.
Lahiru Kumara was excelled with the ball for the under-19 team. His team mate Charith Asalanka was called up the senior team but he was not. On top of this players like Sanjaya Chathuranga, Lahiru Milantha and Sandun Weerakkody were also outstanding for the Development team but are not even in the A team.
Why are established Sri Lankan internationals Dimuth Karunaratne and Kusal Perera playing for Sri Lanka A? The A team should be for blooding youngsters or for testing people who have just been phased out of the Test side. Kemar Roach is playing in the West Indies A side for just that reason.
I am a huge exponent of having a number of routes into the national set up, but we need to formalise the process and ring fence the selection. At the moment they are playing like four separate entities when they should be joined up and coherent.