I think it is a positive picture overall: Kumar Sangakkara

Although he may be in Florida awaiting his final few CPL matches, former Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara is watching the ongoing series between Sri Lanka and Australia like a hawk. In spite of it not being a pretty picture, Sangakkara has stated that this is most certainly not the end of Sri Lankan cricket.

Prior to this, the Lankans were comprehensively beaten at the hands of England, a place where they were successful in 2014. As reported by Firstpost, Sangakkara was quoted as saying that it was a positive picture overall despite the poor performance in recent times.

“I think it is a positive picture overall. There is always the doomsday prophets who will say Sri Lankan cricket hasn’t done too well in 2016 and cricket it is not healthy and I just see the recent tour to England as a start of a one-and-a-half-year period where the team builds. There are quite a lot of young players, a lot of debutants, so we just need to give them some time to build.

“If they have disappointing results one-and-a-half years from now then we can probably reassess how Sri Lankan cricket is faring. But at this moment what they need is a lot of exposure, good quality games like they are playing now [against Australia], a lot of support, a lot of patience, and ensure that we give them the right support at first-class level to ensure that their cricket is played at a much a higher level that it is now. Refine that first-class system, make sure that when players go through that first-class system they come out on the other side as better players, more equipped to handle the international stage. So there are lots of improvements that we can make, but talent wise and ability wise we have some of the best young players going around.”

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“The standard of cricket [at the CPL] is extremely high, as was expected. The crowd participation has been brilliant. There have been a lot of close matches, closely fought and a lot of skill on display and it has been a lot of fun. This is exactly why the CPL has slowly built a very good profile outside the Caribbean as a tournament for all players to play in. We have had a lot of the big stars who are free coming in and wanted to play this as they understand that the Caribbean Premier League has been set up really well, has been built up really well and has currently become one of the three top franchise tournaments in the world.”

“No tournament is perfect, every tournament will have teething problems, every tournament is that Big Bash, IPL, CPL or PSL, whatever they call it, every tournament will have certain issues every year that the organisers, management, and franchise owners will try and iron out. Not everything runs smoothly or perfectly and there will always be some complaint or other, but the overall picture is important as the attraction of the tournament.

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“How much fun it is, the quality of the management and how the tournament is run. How the international players and the local players are treated by the franchise owners and their managers, how the crowd participates, the atmosphere when you are on the ground. All of these things contribute to whether or not you will come otherwise you might come the first year and then if it is not a great experience then they won’t come back. But the CPL every year has just been better and better and as the tournament progresses over the next few years they will have more success and find new and even better ways of making this tournament more attractive.”