Somebody switch off the cheerleaders!

Sri Lankan cheerleaders are the latest talk of the town. In the latest twist to the ‘captaincy switch’ controversy, Mahela Jayawardena has cited cheerleaders’ ineptitude in distracting foreign players as the cause for his unusual logjam which earned him a fine.

“We lost our home advantage since the ICC didn’t put the best local cheerleaders on show. It allowed other teams to undividedly focus on the game, resulting in several markedly tense games,” he lamented, emphatically adding that cheerleaders take away the heavy burdens all married players carry while at the same time playing a salacious role in distracting visiting players.

The ICC, the game’s governing body, in an apparent move to obviate further embarrassment has annexed a new clause to its cricketing code, barring ‘captain switches’. “If we allow it now we cannot imagine the kind of precedence it sets. Many players are quietly worried about how wives will interpret any loopholes if a captain switch is allowed,” Alan Isaac, ICC’s Chief Executive said.

Vice Captain Angelo Mathews is a worried man: “I’ll be captain someday and I’ll have a wife too, as soon as I have screened every woman who wants to marry me. And then the troubles will surely begin.”

Former opener Upul Tharanga disagrees. The freedom to switch your captain is a team prerogative and has always been within the code of ethics, he says. “In fact, one should have the freedom to switch whatever he wants to…” he added. Does it include wives, too? We couldn’t solicit a response as he had switched himself off.

Registrar of Marriages please note! Sri Lanka Housewives’ Association please disregard.

On a closely related subject, a spokeswoman for the Housewives’ Association told the Conspiracy Desk that her association was studying a recent move by women in Togo calling for a weeklong sex strike to support their call for the resignation of Togo’s President. We need to speak in a language men understand in order to make them realise what women in Togo want, a women’s coalition spokeswoman has said. I’d like to hope that women in Sri Lanka wouldn’t really want what women in Togo want, whatever that is!

Quietly checked if my wife is a member of the Housewives’ Association and called up the Presidential Secretariat to check if our Government understands the heartbeat of women in Sri Lanka; just to be on the safe side.

Thought of calling the Leader of the Opposition too but realised that he probably has no clue. Political analysts believe that women are unlikely to vote him back to power in any election anytime soon. With 51% of the population being women, it is likely that no candidate could hope to win an election without the franchise of women. It’s a simple equation. Women in Sri Lanka outnumber men by over 220,000.

Phew, where on earth are they? Wherever you go the chances are you’ll bump into a man. And where are they when you want a few good cheerleaders? Women may not be everywhere but all husbands including our man MJ knows all too well that the one that matters is omnipresent and omnipotent. She’ll make sure you know who the boss is!

The other day I put up a sign on my office door. It read: Remember who the boss is! Few minutes later my secretary said that my wife called and wants her sign back.

“Oh bring back my cheerleaders for me, for me!”

(Dinesh Watawana is a former foreign correspondent and military analyst. He is a brand consultant and heads The 7th Frontier, an integrated communications agency which masterminded the globally-acclaimed eco tourism hotspot KumbukRiver. Email him at [email protected].)