‘Focus on wearing your national cap, education, respect your parents and coaches’: Arjuna Ranatunga tells Mumbai' budding cricketers

MUMBAI: Sri Lanka's celebrated 1996 World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga is in Mumbai these days, on a 'business visit.'Ranatunga arrived in the city on Friday with his close friend and businessman Venkatesh K Rao. On Saturday, the 62-year-old Lankan great addressed a gathering of budding cricketers and their parents, of the Payyade Sports Club in Kandivli.“I had the privilege of having a good session with young cricketers of Mumbai yesterday. I spoke to them about some of the cricketing values which are missing today. I told them about the value of technique, something that you could see in my playing time with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammed Azharuddin, Sourav Ganguly and other top Indian batters,” Ranatunga told TOI on Sunday.The former left-hander, who scored 5105 runs in 93 Tests, asserted that it was important to teach today’s young cricketers about the value of playing for the country, rather than only focus on raking in moolah by playing in cash-rich franchise T20 leagues.“It's important to bring these kids on the right track. Today's cricketers look to play in the franchise leagues, rather than playing for their country. They are looking at the financial benefits, rather than taking pride in wearing the cap and jersey of your national team. If you look at it, a couple of Sri Lankan cricketers missed Sri Lanka's series recently to play in franchise cricket, and in India's case too, cricketers are prioritising playing for their franchises.The cricket boards also need to look at the need of their cricketers playing for the country. I'm not saying get rid of T20 cricket, but back in Colombo too, I look to emphasize on the importance of educating the budding cricketers about the value of playing Test cricket," Ranatunga explained."It is the seniors who need to show the way, make a little bit of sacrifice. So, we emphasized on that. Dr Shetty also has the same ideas that I carry. Before I started my speech, he said a lot of things that I was supposed to mention in my speech. Both of us spoke about the value of wearing the national cap, maintaining discipline, the value of education and technique, respecting your parents and coaches-those are the things that are missing in cricket today, and we need to educate the kids about it," he stressed."I enjoyed talking to the cricketers, they listened to me very attentively. We were lucky that growing up, we had our role models in Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath.When we went to Pakistan, we saw some fine cricketing brains like Imran Khan, Javed Miandad and Abdul Qadir. When I played a Test for the first time in India, in Chennai, Gavaskar took time out for us and spoke to us in our dressing room after the match. I will always cherish his words that day," Ranatunga said."It was a very good session, which lasted for 90 minutes. He was talking about cricket and how to respect parents and how to leave the house with the blessing of your parents. He also told the kids to focus on studies. He told the cricketers that they should focus on education too because today, a cricketer has to be intelligent as well. He emphasized to the aspiring cricketers that studies and parents' respect is very important," Payyade Sports Club president and former MCA joint secretary PV Shetty told Mumbai Mirror.Gaurav Payyade, former MCA apex council member and secretary of Payyade SC, and Bhushan Patil, member of MCA’s present Apex Council, were also present on the occasion."We wanted him to speak to the boys at the ground, but it was raining. So, he spoke to the young cricketers of our club at my hotel in Kandivali. He is keen to establish a cricket academy in Mumbai in collaboration with me," Shetty said.Ranataunga and Venkatesh will leave for Rajkot on Wednesday as they have to visit Morbi for business purposes.Get the latest Sports News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.