Unknown to many people in the island, the course and destiny of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is being run by a set of Indian fugitives wanted in connection with the Mumbai Hotel bombings of November 2008.
The revelation was made by none other than a former Sri Lanka opening batsman and team manager Charith Senanayake at a Press conference on the same day (Thursday) that the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Chief Executive Jeff Allardice met Sri Lanka Sports Minister Harin Fernando in Colombo to discuss lifting its ban on SLC.
“People connected to the Mumbai bombings are running the Lanka Premier League (LPL). I brought this to the notice of the Sports Ministry.
“Half of the LPL team owners cannot even set foot in India and for disclosing this I can be cornered and bumped off on my way home and this is how serious the situation is,” said Senanayake.
The LPL has become SLC’s flagship domestic cricket tournament featuring Sri Lanka’s best as well as overseas players that brings in the big bucks on a scale like never before.
Sacked Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe last year revealed that the LPL was unlawful and run without the sanctioning of his Ministry following complaints that bookie owners and betting agents were taken on board by SLC as team sponsors.
Ranasinghe speaking at the Press conference demanded that the government through the Auditor General’s Department confiscates all assets of cricket officials both locally and overseas which he said were acquired through ill-gotten wealth.
“Since 2018 up to 2023 SLC annually received 30 million dollars and what happened to the funding has to be investigated. Cricket officials are having assets and properties here and overseas and all that must be probed and confiscated,” said Ranasinghe.
But Arjuna Ranatunga, who is considered Ranasinghe’s closest aide in the campaign to rid SLC of corruption and nepotism expressed skepticism that the government will continue to shield shady cricket administrators with an impending Presidential election scheduled for this year.
“The government will not do anything to bring to book corrupt SLC officials who will be the ones funding them (government politicians) at the next (Presidential) election”, said Ranatunga.
