Minister’s favourite ‘Master Blaster’ brought in to fix all the cock-ups that the so called legends created
Sri Lanka cricket legend Sanath Jayasuriya, a close buddy of the current Minister of Sports Harin Fernando, has been appointed by Sri Lanka Cricket as a Consultant for a 12-month period with a widely rumored salary of Rs 5 million a month.
His new role at Sri Lanka Cricket will expire on December 14, 2024.
Jayasuriya, also known as the master blaster, was until recently a close ally of the ousted former Minister of Sports Roshan Ranasinghe.
Despite strong objections raised then, the former Minister Ranasinghe nevertheless persisted with Jayasuriya’s appointment as a member of the National Sports Selection Committee, despite being banned by the International Cricket Council for two years, after he admitted to obstructing an anti-corruption probe by tampering with evidence sought by the ICC.
However, the then Minister Roshan Ranasinghe went a step further and also appointed Jayasuriya as the Chairman Technical Advisory Committee to SLC too, a post that another so-called legend Aravinda De Silva had held when he was appointed by the then Minister of Sports Namal Rajapaksa.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Cricket in a media statement stated that Jayasuriya will have authority over coaching and skills development of players and operate from its High-Performance Centre at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.
“Under this role Jayasuriya will be responsible for ensuring that SLC’s national programs achieve an optimum level of professionalism and that all players and coaching staff are monitored in order to deliver excellence”, the media Statement said.
Jayasuriya, according to SLC, will also take charge of strategies in line with an ongoing player development plan.
A Sri Lanka Cricket Executive Committee Member who was miffed by Jayasuriya’s appointment and speaking to The Morning Telegraph on condition of anonymity said “We didn’t touch Sanath Jayasuriya even with a barge pole up until now, especially after he was banned by the ICC . But sadly, President Shammi Silva and the Executive Committee are currently at the mercy of President Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sagala Ratnayake and have no option, but to do as Minister of Sports Harin Fernando says.”
“Harin and Sanath are buddies. Everyone knows that. Harin even made it public when at the last concluded 4th Lanka Premier League Tournament, he told a female reporter that Sanath is his favourite cricketer. Harin seems to be obsessed with Sanath. He has also appointed him as an ambassador to the Ministry of Tourism that comes under his purview. Eventually, Sanath who has been trying for a long time, managed to creep through the back into SLC. Anyway, we won’t be expecting miracles from him.” he concluded.
Meanwhile, critics claim Jayasuriya’s appointment is a mere public appeasement that will serve no purpose in the corruption tainted cricket establishment.
During his playing days, Sanath Jayasuriya the master blaster was always a respected player when he was within the boundary ropes. But his respect beyond the boundary ropes at times remained questionable.
For example in the past, when Jayasuriya was the Chief Selector, he was accused of selecting a mediocre player who had close connections to the Government. This was when he was a Member of Parliament and during the days he openly supported the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Jayasuriya was also under the ICC’s Anti Corruption Unit radar, when he was the Chief Selector. This is when allegations were made that crucial information such as team selections, pitch and weather conditions were leaked out to third parties for substantial amounts of money prior to the commencement of cricket matches. Coincidentally, Jayasuriya also happened to be the Chief Selector when Sri Lanka lost a highly controversial ODI series to Zimbabwe by 3 matches to 2.
Meanwhile, just prior to his appointment as a Consultant, he was seen providing his expert knowledge and advice to the current Sri Lanka Under 19 Team who were competing at the Under 19 Asia Cup in Dubai. Sadly, his motivational talk bore no fruit, as the SLC Under 19 Cricket Team were knocked out of the tournament. They lost to Bangladesh, whilst experiencing an embarrassing loss to the young lads from the United Arab Emirates too.
The truth remains that Sri Lanka Cricket has for a considerable time been operating like a rudderless ship.
For example, in 2017 they were at an abysmal low in all three formats and were ranked as follows: ODI – 8, Test – 6, T20 – 8.
Fast forward to the 9th December 2023 and SLC are ranked as follows: ODI – 7, Test – 7, T20 – 8.
There has hardly been any change in the last seven years. SLC had to play qualifiers to secure entrance to both T20 and ODI World Cup Tournaments. Further, for the very first time SLC failed to qualify for the next Champions Trophy due to being placed 9th out of 10 teams at the recently concluded ODI World Cup.
However, between the years 2016 and now, SLC has had many legends come in with all sorts of miraculous plans to pull SLC out of this rut.
Aravinda De Silva came in as the Chief Selector and Chairman Technical Advisory Committee not once but thrice (2011,2016 and 2019) and brought in a plethora of foreign coaches and back end staff for huge sums of waged salaries. It’s common knowledge that when these sorts of appointments are made agents and sub agents make substantial commissions too. The High Performance Centre was hijacked. COO Jerome Jayaratne was removed and sent to occupy an office at Maitland Place, whilst many quality cricket coaches who were shunned, went overseas to coach foreign teams.
Aravinda and company brought in their friends and acquaintances as coaches. In fact Muttiah Muralidaran’s Sunrisers Hyderabad buddy Tom Moody was brought in as a Consultant to do 180 days of work a year for a whopping annual payment of US $ 200,000. Even Ruwan Kalpage and Darshana Gamage were brought in as the Spin and Fast Bowling Coaches. Jehan Mubarak Head Coach (Under 19), Avishka Gunawardena (Head Coach Sri Lanka ‘A’ Team) were also absorbed, whilst Naveed Nawaz (Assistant Head Coach), a close associate of Aravinda De Silva along with England’s discard Chris Silverwood (Head Coach) and Anton Roux (Fielding Coach) made up the so called crack coaching unit.
Somewhere along the way Mahela Jayawardena also entered the fray as a Consultant and has already pocketed approximately half a million US Dollars with not much results to show.
However, in all seriousness, do we now believe that Sanath Jayasuriya could weave his magic wand and fix all the problems at Sri Lanka Cricket?
Hello! It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee.
Perhaps only Minister of Sports Harin Fernando thinks his buddy and friend Sanath Jayasuriya is that Messiah who could perform that miracle.
