Sri Lankan sportsmen and women seem to take for granted the skills they are born with. This is perhaps why we see teenage prodigies excel and then drop out of sport after promising careers in schools. There is an advantage when a person is born with average skills. Sports personalities who fall into this category look for an edge and find it in sports education.

If you think books are boring take this for a starter; martial arts expert Bruce Lee was so good at fighting because he read almost every book that was written on martial arts during his time.

Many think that Lee was a gifted martial artiste. True, he was, but only a few know that he had a bad back (displacement of a disk) and was short-sighted in one eye. He had his handicaps and, looking at him, he wasn’t the biggest and didn’t have an advantage in height either. People who knew him closely say that he was a keen student of martial arts.

He was also blessed with intuition. When Filipino martial artiste and expert in Kali (stick fighting), Dan Inosanto, handed Lee his fighting sticks, the latter is said to have performed the most advanced combat form with the stick. Later Inosanto was surprised to learn that Lee had actually handled the sticks for the first time. "Call it what you may but this is my style," Lee had later told a startled Inosanto.

There is great importance in studying martial arts and observing when intuition is at work. Lee used both to excel in martial arts.

It’s a pity that Sri Lankan sports men and women don’t have the reading habit. There have been numerous occasions when press interview with top Sri Lankan sports personalities have been a flop, because their knowledge in sport doesn’t run deep. Some argue how studying a sport from a book or studying the history of sport would take them to the next level in their selected discipline? The answer for this can’t be produced in a flash like one prepares instant noodles!

Sportsmen and women encounter sticking points, sometime during their careers. Sometimes the periods without improvement are so frustrating they quit in disgust. The person who reads and updates his knowledge will quickly come out of a sticking point and start enjoying the sport again.

There have been occasions when injured sportsmen have been able to make a swift comeback by reading up on injuries and how the anatomy works.

Former Sri Lanka rugby captain Haris Omar is one example. Omar had career threatening injuries to both knees and during the recovery period, he read about the knee joint and what the doctor would do during the operation. As a result, Omar not only came back strongly and went on to captain Sri Lanka, he also knew how to protect his knees from further damage, during matches.

It’s always helpful to read up the history and of past greats of the discipline you’ve chosen. This will help you see the big picture of sport, as a player, and when you step into the shoes of a sport administrator.

We have seen team captains scratch their heads for answers when their teams are handed defeat after defeat. The person without a reading experience will not know much beyond his own thinking. But the person who reads will have access to strategies of other captains, coaches and administrators. As you know authors and journalists don’t spare anybody when they are looking for quality information to produce reading matter. As a result the books or the articles they pen in are loaded with information.

Sri Lanka in general has failed to produce good captains because of the absence of the habit to read on sport and also to make a study of it. A captain has to read the game well and also have a sound knowledge of man management. This is why most captains blame it on captaincy when they experience a slump in form. Many captains quit the captaincy in disgust. There have been captains who have run into storms either by promoting their close associates or falling out with the coach or sports administrators. We seldom find sportsmen and women who enjoy the captaincy, have healthy relationship with team-mates and sports administrators and also continue performing themselves.

If you’ve observed the career of ICC match referee Ranjan Madugalle, he has always been an avid reader and a keen student of cricket. It is said that once, when some cricket official had gone to Madugalle’s residence to talk to him about a youth cricket tour, they had been astonished at the collection of books and cassettes on cricket. Madugalle was at that time a student of Royal College. No wonder Madugalle went onto become an ICC match referee and is today designated as the ICC’s Chief Match Referee. Madugalle is known for his charisma and also for being the ideal bet to defuse a tricky situation in international cricket.

Sri Lanka cricket is also blessed with the services of wicket-keeper - batsman and present national cricket captain Kumar Sangakkara. He is said to be a prodigious reader and a keen student of the game. Sangakkara is the brand ambassador for many Sri Lankan products. The choice of Sangakkara as captain would serve well for the future of Sri Lanka cricket because he would score heavily during interviews, given the vast knowledge he possess of the sport and his flare for speaking.

Many moons ago this writer visited a ground, where Petersons Sports Club rugby team was practicing, to do an interview with the coach, Shamrath Fernando. All players had come attired in their black jerseys, which had the number 1823 printed on the rear. On inquiring what the number meant, Fernando said, it was the year that William Webb Ellis gave birth to rugby football when he picked up a football and ran during a soccer match. He added that printing the number 1823 on the jersey was the start he gave his players to read up on the sport. When one reads up how a game has evolved since the beginning, a sportsman can make a meaningful contribution to sport.