Bowing down to the wishes of the people, Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe has formally sacked the corrupt and destructive administration of Sri Lanka Cricket and brought in former captain Arjuna Ranatunga to resurrect a ruined organization.
Minister of Sports Roshan Ranasinghe finally bites after barking for a while
Ranatunga will have three retired Supreme and Hight Court judges to advise him on administrative matters and a former Sri Lanka Cricket president in Upali Dharmadasa in the new set-up which comes into immediate operation.
Ranatunga pledged to wipe out corruption, financial misdeeds, the curse of bookies, nepotism and reintroduce discipline among the players as his first priority.
Barring Secretary Mohan De Silva who tendered his resignation a few days ago, the entire Shammi Silva led SLC Executive Committee were sacked by Minister of Sports Roshan Ranasinghe
“I will make sure that only former players with a clean track record will be in charge of taking cricket forward.”
“We need to pick up and take this forward as one big responsible family and my first target will be preparing a team for the T20 World Cup (in the USA) in 2024”, said Ranatunga.
Ranatunga said he will put an end to what he called player politics and playing cricket for money that has become the main concern of players which has stood in the way of picking the right and capable players.
“Some players have made it to the Sri Lanka team not on merit and capability, but on other factors like financial gains ahead of results and it will be my responsibility to put an end to all that.
“We will talk to the players when they return from the World Cup and find out more of their grievances and their job will be only to play and not get involved in the game’s administration or try to influence officials.
“If any player cannot fall in line, they are free to leave and go home”, said Ranatunga.
He promised a new culture based on values and transparency in the new environment which he said will be like it was in the past when all stakeholders were held to account for their actions.
Meanwhile a former Sri Lanka National World Cup winning player speaking on condition of anonymity said “I only hope that Arjuna will be vary of these so-called high profile former legends who brought in scores of foreign coaches and backend staff, which eventually ruined the SLC High Performance set up. Many foreign coaches and consultants were brought in for huge sums of money such as Tom Moody, Simon Wills and Tim McCaskill based on friendships of these legends, who ended up bringing their own buddies through these appointments to head various cricket disciplines. Almost all of these appointments were done through agents and their sub-agents who made substantial amounts of monies through commissions.”
