Sri Lanka’s West Asia Baseball Cup win deserves greater recognition

By Madushka Balasuriya

The Japan-Sri Lanka Friendship Baseball stadium since opening in 2012 has, for much of its existence, been known as the Diyagama Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium, and like many other structures named after Sri Lanka’s former President, it has also remained largely unused playing host to just four games in the lead up to the tournament. 

But on 20 July, South Asia’s only dedicated baseball stadium was transformed. While pavilion stands are still conspicuous by their absence, they were not missed, replaced instead by breezy tents, easily fitting the couple of hundred spectators that had stopped by to take in the action.

But don’t let those modest numbers fool you; this is a sport that the masses can sink their teeth into – if given the opportunity. As it stands Sri Lanka Baseball, an organisation still working under amateur status, essentially funds itself. 

And with funding a prerequisite to growing any sport in any country, it is important to note that among the onlookers were key decision-makers from the Government and tourism sectors – some of whom will hopefully take on board the significance of the interest shown by many of the passer-by’s who arrived in their throngs to support the Lankan Fowls, and more importantly, the ease with which many of the spectators seem to catch on to proceedings. 

The fact is, for a country weaned on the complexities of cricket, the comparatively bare bones mechanics of baseball, aided by an onsite commentator who did an exemplary job decoding the action, was digested without much difficulty. 

If football, the world’s most popular sport, can credit the ease of which it is to pick up and play as reason for their success, then baseball – which admittedly requires a touch more equipment – can reasonably claim it’s a sport that is rather easier to understand, especially seeing as it doesn’t involve that pesky ‘offside’ rule.

Baseball is sometimes known as ‘chess on the diamond’. While on the face of it, the sport is fairly straightforward – a bat and ball game where two teams of nine players each take turns batting and fielding – take a closer look and the chess analogy begins to make more sense.

Like chess, baseball is an anticipatory game with plays thought out well in advance. Pitcher’s armed with an arsenal of different throws actively work on ‘setting up’ a hitter or batter. Batters meanwhile, who on average miss more than they hit, have to bide their time for a pitch in their hitting zone.

This is particular true in how statistics are deconstructed, as traditional metrics of success don’t necessarily apply in baseball. In baseball a 30% strike rate would be considered outstanding. In fact, as a batter if you can hit three safe hits, you would be considered one of the better batters in the whole league. 

This simple statistic illustrates how difficult baseball batting is. And it’s this steep learning curve that the Sri Lankan national baseball team has been on since the game was first introduced to Sri Lanka in 1985, and more pertinently in the last few years, when the team really began making waves on the international stage.

In 2009, Sri Lanka won its first medal on the global stage taking Bronze at the Asia Baseball Cup in Thailand. In the following years they gradually built on that success taking successive Silver medals in 2012 at the West Asia Baseball Cup and Punjab Baseball Festival, both in Pakistan. In 2015 they came close yet again, taking Bronze at the East Asia Baseball Cup. And finally that elusive Gold was secured in 2017.

Then this year, on Saturday, they did it again, once again triumphing over a Pakistan side which have much the same hurdles for growing the sport as they do. The game itself was as close as you might expect, a narrow 5-4 win for the fouls. But that does not even begin to capture the tension a game of baseball managed to create amongst the crowd that evening.

For this writer, it was a first-ever live baseball experience, and like many in the crowd I was going in with only a loose grasp on the rules. But so simple is the sport to understand, before long I was well-versed in the significance of loaded bases, stealing runs, and precision hitting. 

Prior to the game, all I had known was that both teams had cruised it into the finals. Pakistan had swept aside Iran and Bangladesh in the group stages by scores of 11-1 and 17-0 respectively, while India were thumped 13-2 in the semi-finals. 

For Sri Lanka, while their start had been more circumspect – a narrow 2-1 win over India – they soon found their groove against Nepal, cruising to a 13-0 victory. Then in the semi-finals, any signs of nerves were quickly dispelled, as Iran fell 10-2.

But following those high-scoring affairs, for much of the final it seemed Sri Lanka’s measly three runs in the first inning would be enough (it wasn’t). That though is the great thing about baseball; in combining the raw fun of cricket in absolutely smashing an airborne ball with a bat, with the cagey game management of defending a slim one goal lead in football, in evenly contested games, it achieves sporting drama without breaking a sweat. By the bottom of the ninth and final inning Pakistan needed two runs to take the game into extra innings and three to win outright.

After an early out Pakistan had gotten into the position they would have been dreaming of – second and third bases loaded. Then, a clean hit saw the batter run out, though third base make it home. Now it’s the final out, no margin for error. If Sri Lanka run out the hitter, the trophy is theirs; for Pakistan, it’s a matter of simply finding a gap in the field and running clear. In the end it was Sri Lanka that persevered by mere inches.

But while the winners will deservedly savour their moment of glory, and losers wallow in defeat, once the dust settles both teams, along with all the teams that have taken part in the this tournament, will ultimately look towards the greater battle going forward, the one for true sporting recognition in their respective countries and eventually the region.