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SYDNEY, Australia, Tuesday - Arjuna Ranatunga, Sri Lanka's 'captain cool' if he has ideas of giving it up after the World Cup, will do well to squash the idea and get on with it because the game requires that he takes it to the next millennium.

Ranatunga never had it so bad as he did in Australia on the recent tour. However he earned encomiums from many quarters for the way he handled the Muralitharan chucking affair, and for telling umpire Ross Emerson what he thought of his antics.

From the moment he stood by his teammate and team, he came in for stinging criticism from the biased media here who went over their tops in their endeavour to influence the match referee Peter Van der Merve to take drastic action against him.

Ranatunga was well aware of the behind scenes moves that were on to scalp him. But being the shrewd, calculated and intelligent leader that he is, he batted with aplomb the code of conduct issue and came out of it with his head held high.

We must have nothing but admiration for this man. In retaining lawyers to fight his case, he was using the natural justice that was allowed him, in the ICC laws regarding the code of conduct.

That certainly would have antagonised the match referee who would not have expected this googly from Ranatunga. In doing so, he snooked the Australian Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council and showed them that their rules need to be amended.

But what was amusing in this whole ugly episode was that while umpires Ross Emerson and Tony McQuillan withdrew their charges against Ranatunga, it was the charges levelled by the match referee that he had to clear.

What was funny was that the accuser (match referee) was also going to be the judge. In rebelling against a law that was to say the least amusing and coming out with it with flying colours, he made the ICC that has been called names like 'Toothless tiger', 'Paper tiger' look 'Internaitonal cricket Clowns! That's what prompted the match referee to say that the ICC need to amend the laws when printing their next edition of the laws of conduct.

Ranatunga will certainly not be without his critics. But had his critics been here to see the mental torture he was put through, they would certainly temper their criticism of him. Ranatunga receiving a suspended sentence made some of the rabid media people to even suggest that the lords at lord's would not be inviting (Sri Lanka) to play in the World Cup, forgetting that they are the world champions.

When Emerson who was suffering from stress stood in the game in Adelaide and called Muralitharan. He was apparently bringing the game to disrepute and he was turning his back on the ACB and the ICC. The ACB had promised that the tour would go on without any hassle, apparently confident that Emerson was aware that that the ICC had cleared Muralitharan's action and he would not cause any embarrassment to anyone. But what Emerson did on that day is beyond reasoning.

What is now required of the Lankan cricketers is to forget it all and concentrate and focus, first on the upcoming World Cup and then be geared to stuff the kangaroos when they tour Sri Lanka for a three Test and three one-day series competition from August to October.

A little known fact about Ranatunga is that he is playing the game in great pain and discomfort without showing it. He has two stress fractures on his back, but keeps going because for him the game's the thing.