Ranathunga Blames BCCI

Colombo, Srilanka: The former Sri Lankan captain and the cheif of Sri Lanka Cricket, Arjuna Ranathunga slammed on BCCI for its poor management of the team. The captain was speaking in light of the recent defeat of team India in the test series. He said "There is no other foreign effect to be blamed but BCCI for its poor management, the council had not prepared its players for the foreign tour and this brought about the defeat to the country". The Indian Cricket team had lost 0-4 against the England team in the test series held at England.

Arjuna feels that the team was under prepared for the test series and the players were more into ODI's and IPL than the test version of the game. As known to the world, Arjuna Ranathunga is a critic to the IPL seasons and feels that the twenty-20 versions of the game is breaking the attitude of players towards the longer version of the game. 

He continued " After the World Cup players did not rest properly and were rushing to participate in the IPL competitions, we had incidents of players postponing the surgeries for the sake of the game and in a final turn it did effect on the upcoming series."

He also reacted on players who opted out of West Indies tour of India. Although the skipper continued to praise Rahul Dravid for his achievements and also added the tag that he was well prepared!

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I encouraged Dravid - Ricky Ponting

Melbourne: Former caption to the Australian cricket team claims that he had persuaded the veteran cricketer Rahul Dravid from the thoughts of retirement from the test series. The bad form for the cricketer through last year was badly received by the board and media and had almost written off Dravid from the team. Ricky Ponting claims to have met Dravid during the last day of the series and have asked him not to retire. " I remember after our last series in India there were more speculations to the fact that Rahul Dravid was finished" the skipper recalls. "I had talked to him at the end of the series and told him 'Dont even think of retirement, because I just saw few sparks through your innings which does mention that the current phase will pass"

Rahul Dravid was much acclaimed for his accomplishments in the recent tour of England, where the team India had a clean washout of 0-4 series. The 'wall' as Dravid is popularly known had scored 461 runs in the series and this included three centuries to his bag. Where other players failed to show a consistent form it was the one positive that team India could carry back after the series defeat.

Ponting also added that ""I just said 'don't let them wear you down, don't let them get you down'. I received a similar text message before and after the Ashes from him as well," he added. 

The 36 year old cricketer has not scored a century from January of last year and he hopes to regain touch in near future and finds his inspiration from Rahul Dravid

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