One doesn’t need to point out how terrible your state is when you’re playing a tri-nation series with Bangladesh and India’s B-side and the other two teams end up in the final. To further add to that insult, it needed Dinesh Karthik’s last ball six against Bangladesh to give Sri Lankans a true feeling of liberation after 70 years of their independence.

The solution to the first problem is pretty much long-term and the “Brain Centre” could hardly assure impeccable prediction of a player’s growth. Ask Barcelona FC, from where SLC fielding coach Nic Pothas borrowed the technology and who are supposedly the epitome of talent creation in their business, and you’ll know that the machinery hasn’t been optimal. The Catalans, who had stunned the world with its emerging youngsters under Pep Guardiola a few years back, hardly have five La Masia academy graduates in their side today.

While he was surely ahead of his time, it wasn’t until Belgian chiropractor Jean-Pierre Meersseman introduced it in AC Milan that the world took notice of it. Following the failed buy of Real Madrid legend Fernando Redondo, who had helped Los Blancos win two Champions Leagues in six seasons but was reduced to an injury-prone mediocre player at San Siro, the Rossoneri had vowed never to make the same mistake again.

This had led the legendary Italian club to help the Belgian introduce the famous ‘Milan lab’ in 2002. Like the “Brain Centre”, the lab resorted to collecting meticulous data that would help them to foresee any of their player’s injuries on the field. It had incorporated different techniques like kinesiology, psychology, and neurology to ensure that they kept their players fit at any cost.

They exacted the revenge in 2007 though, where a side consisting of the likes of Clarence Seedorf, Filippo Inzaghi, Paolo Maldini, Gennaro Gattuso, and more, all in their 30s and some even 40s but still at their prime, beat the Reds 2-1. The ageing, yet the world-class squad had only four players in their 20s that epic season. It was this instant success at Milan that has attracted many to resort to analytics and with the 2019 World Cup coming up next year, the Lankans would be eyeing the same in order to get themselves back in the world cricket’s map. 

Meersseman had once claimed that ‘age doesn’t exist’ and at a time when nothing is clicking for the Sri Lankan side, they would undoubtedly want the experienced likes of Upul Tharanga, Lasith Malinga, Thisara Perera and Chamara Kapugedara (all either well above 30 or in the late 20s) to step up one more time by overcoming the physical and psychological inhibitions with the help of the “Brain Centre”.

Milan were so focused on their success with the lab that they went on to buy more aged players, who were either in the downhill or well past their prime. Consequently, it led to lack of planning for succession and the club is barely a contender for the domestic title today, let alone Europe.

One lesson it gave to the world was that instead of attempting at prolonging greatness against the forces of nature, it would rather have been more proactive in breeding talents - something Sri Lanka have been terrible at as of late. One look at Sri Lanka’s domestic cricket’s structure and it would be clear that the talents of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene are nowhere to be seen now. 

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” ‘Brain Centre’ could either be a brilliant success down the years leading other nations to imitate Sri Lanka’s rise from the ashes, or it could end up being a failed lab experiment in the few years with its status plummeting further.

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