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David Dunham & Sisira Jayasuriya
As you sit back watching World Cup cricket, spare a thought for some of the implications of actually winning the trophy. Look at the aftermath of the Sri Lankan victory in the last World Cup. National prestige soared - it was on the map. Folk heroes were created. Praise, money and friends (which had been rare in the past) were suddenly there in abundance. There was passionate identification with the team and an exuberant expression and outflow of national consciousness. And, indeed, no other team could empty pavilion bars or keep an international audience enthralled and on tenterhooks in quite the same way as the Sri Lankans when they were all on song. But how do things look three years on? The answer is that the situation has changed remarkably. And not always for the better.
Certainly, success created far greater access to a rich and internationally powerful cricket industry. The power of cricket as professionally-packaged mass entertainment (aggressively marketed by the multinational media and facilitated by satellite television) turned players into household names and provided undreamed of riches. But it was not open to everyone, and once entry was secured, there are suggestions that it was protected through cronyism, not just on merit. It became increasingly difficult for young blood to push itself into the team and to get established. Cricket administrators in Sri Lanka suddenly found that they had a monopoly of a hugely profitable product that they could exploit with international media empires on a joint venture basis. In the past, the Board of Control had been staffed by people with a passion for cricket or at least substantial expertise in it (with a political figure as president of the board in a largely ceremonial capacity). This is no longer true. Fortunes could bemade. Governments provided subsidies and increasingly exerted political control over the board, as a lever for the dispensation of patronage and of massive economic gains. The Annual General Meeting of the Board on 28 March this year, marred by widespread allegations of impersonation and assault, unruly behaviour, the presence of armed thugs supporting rival contenders, was an indication of how much is at stake.
There have also been reports of pervasive interference by individuals and families with political clout in team selection, and more generally in the formulation and implementation of strategic plans and international contracts. In many ways, this was a reflection of what was happening in Sri Lankan society more generally - most visibly in the first of the recent provincial council elections. Involvement by politicians to such a degree in any industry obviously affects its performance. Politicians (and those who owe their positions to them) tend to have far shorter time horizons and very different aims from those with long-term developmental and commercial objectives. And they have strong incentives to secure as much as possible before the government eventually falls. And this has happened in cricket - at times almost regardless of cricket.
For the government, the World Cup victory in 1996 was a valuable distraction that created political breathing space. It was an ideal opiate. By then, the honeymoon of the Kumaratunga election and dreams of ending the war, eliminating corruption and political violence, and reducing the inequality in Sri Lankan society had already begun to evaporate.
Cricket was a powerful form of mass escapism. It bridged traditionally entrenched divisions of caste, class and ethnicity; the national mood swung violently between elation and despair with the fortune of the team, and the celebration of success dulled any sense of deprivation, inequality, conflict or political mismanagement. But to provide the necessary "high" the team had to keep winning, and that it has clearly failed to do.
Not only the team's earlier coach but cricket is also becoming caught up in a more general malaise. With the politicisation of the board, the conflict it has spawned, the long series of lost matches, and persistence with "the same old team", it was inevitable that the team was simply no longer up to it. The team's abysmal performance and the disarray in Sri Lankan cricket are likely to be magnified and to be held up publicly as yet another example of the corrupting effect of Sri Lankan politics (of whatever party). The price of victory has therefore been high. Sri Lankan cricket is in many respects in a far worse state today than it was before it took the Cup. The problem was not winning the Cup, but managing the success.
The writers are economic consultants to the Sri Lankan government
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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