Aiyo! Where is the Shakthi in our Kreeda?

The recent exclamation in the vernacular linked inexorably to our cricket fortunes sums up in a nutshell the pithy concern about the health of our national sports status in general.

At the moment, except for our cricketers mired down under in a battle royal that pits them against the world’s best, not much of note is taking place about Sri Lanka’s sporting credentials in the international scene.

For us islanders, who are prone to express most of our prowess in exaggerated terms choosing the hyperbole to make up for a general lack of sustainable quality, it is more often than not, just a walk in the park.

It is in that context that a closer look at Kreeda Shakthi, a program designed by the Ministry of Sports is relevant and timely. Will such a program effectively channel the talent of our sportsmen and sportswomen in the right direction and help them to arrive at the international stage? A big question this, demanding answers and actions, but first, let’s address some of the basic issues that surround such lofty ideals.

School sports

We all know that sports is built from a young age and is developed from the primary forms in school through the various phases, before a lad or a lass makes his or her presence at the senior national level and then hopefully from there to the international level.

That indeed is an arduous journey which only a privileged few can undertake let alone accomplish. It is therefore fundamental for any nation pursuing a serious sports culture that the cradle of each individual sport must be in good and competent hands.

It is also common knowledge that school sports rests with the Ministry of Education (MOE) and not with the Ministry of Sports (MOS). While this precise compartmentalisation is necessarily so with academia rightly given due priority, the aspect of sports in most modern societies has now been attracting greater importance than it ever did before, with sports welded into the curriculum in order to produce what we might ordinarily call the perfect human being!

Thus, for any nation aspiring for excellence in sports, bringing that sphere of activity into the mainstream at an early stage becomes a challenge not many can conceptualise and implement easily. In Sri Lanka, the National Sports Policy, articulated through very visible publicity features in the national media, appears to recognise that need and one must admit, valiantly attempts to address it.

That in itself is a great start because unless one has a good understanding of that inherent axis, sports will remain within the perception that those who have no brains can at least vent their brawn! That the two must go side by side though viewed as idealism, is indeed a precept that many will not dismiss out of hand.

Now, how we put that to work is the question that one keeps coming back to time and again. As it happens in most developed countries, conceptually, the school based sports (normally under the purview of a MOE) must identify national level sportsmen and sportswomen from a tender age of about 10 onwards and channel them into academies that may be aligned with the MOS.

These bright sparks are then carefully developed through the ages and guided into the senior platforms before displaying their class on the world stage. Sounds easy, but this 10-year regime is normally the bedrock on which top athletes emerge to face the best of the world. Any decent coach will tell you that no shortcut will get you to that threshold unless the institution and the individual are willing to make that lifelong commitment.

The Kreeda Shakthi program

The Kreeda Shakthi program of the MOS in Sri Lanka no doubt attempts to emulate all that is best in the world of sports. Its selection of 1,200 athletes will receive sports scholarships and a host of benefits and privileges it is claimed, making them an elite corps of athletes primed for national representation one day.

Obviously, in order to be fair and evenly geared, the program is administered at district level and is expected to be based on merit where talented boys and girls will be given an opportunity to excel in sports and thus pursue their dream.

While the program in itself is praiseworthy, the sheer enormity of the scheme and its time frames demand the query as to whether the ambit of the MOE and MOS has been breached! However creditable Kreeda Shakthi is supposed to be, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And here one wonders if the structures that are being conceived will provide the results begged for in the long term.

For example, why is it not the Sports Division under the MOE which is spearheading this program or arguably, have the two ministries united in this venture which perhaps would be the perfect approach?

Furthermore, the program is zooming in on athletics in particular and not on sports in general, which may be too narrow and confined to befit a national plan. While grandiose publicity stunts do not curry favour with the discerning observer, nor do half-baked schemes that do not see the light of day in the end! Therefore more than ordinary circumspection behooves the grand design!

A start

Still Kreeda Shakthi is a start and it must therefore be nurtured and supported by all streams of society. The young boys and girls picked will surely be in the vanguard of a nation striving to make its presence felt on the international glare of the future. But Kreeda Shakthi must be much more!

It could be an opportunity for the MOE and the MOS to work in unison drawing in the NOC and the NSAs into the larger scheme of things, because they are in effect the ultimate repositories of these young men and women.

Our National Sports Policy must be all encompassing! It must assign responsibilities of this national program to all its principal stakeholders. This must not be done by causing unnecessary overlaps, but by a carefully designed national blueprint that will take a young talent from a tender age and guide it through to the hallowed arenas of international stardom.

National sports assets

Strangely enough some recent squabbles throw up the dilemma of national sports assets. Take the case of the National TT player Dinesh Deshapriya battling an illness on his own, or the SLBF enquiry that has kept badminton star Achini Ratnasiri on tenterhooks even as she aspires to Olympic fame.

There are many other cases where an individual athlete or even a team is left in despair because officialdom has failed to address issues in a fair and timely manner, destroying years of hardship and endeavour.

Sport in Sri Lanka is trapped in the tunnel of a cricket syndrome where all other sports must wait in a queue because the powers that be are preoccupied by the fanfare of our most popular sport.

Hopefully Kreeda Shakthi can correct this imbalance and demand equitable attention to the other disciplines. Only then will the Shakthi fuel our Kreeda to great heights. Otherwise it will be aiyo, aiyo!