A little help from Down Under for St. Peter’s

Sulakshana Fernando (third from right) with the Brisbane Club team members

At the recently concluded 43rd Josephian-Peterite limited overs encounter there was an incident that was unprecedented in the history of school cricket in Sri Lanka, which went unnoticed by the majority of viewers. The Bambalapitiya school had bolstered their top order with a player who was not only unfamiliar with his blue, white and gold attire but also Sri Lankan pitches, which to his credit he managed to master during his short but eventful stay in our emerald isle. 

Young Sulakshana Fernando played a brilliant match-winning innings of 90, which was instrumental in helping St. Peter’s regain the Peter Pillai Trophy for the third consecutive year. No doubt his parents and coaches in Australia at the South Brisbane Cricket Club, which he last represented as recently as November 2016, were very happy with his match-winning performance.  

Whilst being excited for this young lad and wishing him all the best in his future cricketing career, I need to question the ethical aspect of a school fielding a player whose admission to that school is under serious doubt. It is obvious that a boy who studied right through and completed his exams in Australia and who has already enrolled in a university there has no reason to follow any Advanced Level course in Sri Lanka. No one in their right mind who has easy entrance to an Australian university sitting for exams in Australia would decide to sit for the London A-Level examination. Nor is it realistically possible to follow the Advanced Level during a supposed four-month stay in a country whilst shuttling between a university in Australia and cricket grounds in Colombo. 

Therefore it is fair to assume that the college authorities may have purposely deceived the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association (SLSCA) and Ministry of Education by claiming that this boy was indeed a student of the college when it is evident that he wasn’t. 

I do hope the necessary authorities look into this matter to see how a person with a foreign or dual citizenship managed to register for a school cricket team while not really following a course at that school. The boy also has three First XI matches, including a tournament match against Dharmaraja College in January 2017 which should come under scrutiny.    

But what is truly disappointing is how the administrators of a school which claims to foster Catholic and Christian values would aspire to ignore the same all in the name of winning at any cost. Is it not these very same administrators who should be teaching children to play fair by setting a proper example? 

It should be pointed out that this particular case is very different from the player poaching that most big schools seem to be practising these days to supplement the shortcomings of their respective systems. In those cases the players are offered better facilities, coaching and an opportunity to eventually represent the school or country while most importantly benefitting from the superior academic facilities which such schools are perceived to possess. The key point being that these players actually attend school and prepare for exams and are not merely short-term mercenaries brought in for selected matches purely for the school’s glory.  

I therefore do hope that other schools are not inspired to emulate such bad practices which are not only unfair to one’s opponents but also to the boys who miss out on an opportunity to represent their school on such important occasions.

A. Peiris