Cold war undercurrents still at Cricket HQ
View(s):This is like walking in circles. Wherever you go, you end up at the very spot where you began your perambulation. Cricket in Sri Lanka has a history of over one hundred years and the extent of roots that it has put into our mother earth is simply huge. The height of this expansion is that people in this country do believe in this game. This is not a national sport that was poked down the throats of the masses by some short-sighted politician who does not know the difference between a ball and a Rubik Cube. Cricket is the national sport of this country by general acceptance and pure belief.
The game of cricket has taken root in all possible places in Sri Lanka and it is a massive entity on its own. It is simply bigger than any other sport in the country in every sense. When anything of this magnitude takes over the imagination of the people, they in return want a piece of it. They want to be identified with it and at times they tend to make a living out of it. Yet, when it is as popular as it is there are many people who get into the wagon for the pure purpose of name laundering. There are some others who get involved in the melee to wield power and sometimes some people get involved for both these reasons.
No nukes; but the cold war is on
We all have discussed about the impending elections and how the two factions — the Dharmadasa and the Ranatunga camps — got themselves involved in SLC’s money distributing exercise to woo the stake holders on the pretext of helping the clubs to upgrade their standards. What happened next was both factions were at each other’s throats. Initially a letter was sent out by Secretary Nishantha Ranatunga to the stake holders informing them of a meeting. But it was nullified by a salvo fired by President Jayantha Dharmadasa, whose letter said the date and the venue of the meeting had been changed. The development saw Maitland Place stink. Then it emanated to the whole blinking country and to the whole cricketing world.
First the word came that the Dharmadasa faction is disillusioned with the operational methods of secretary Ranatunga and if something is not done to remove Ranatunga from his portfolio they would resign.
This resulted in the higher echelons of the Lankan political officialdom getting involved in the matter. First the Minister of Sports summoned the two feuding factions and requested them to work together and then even President Mahinda Rajapaksa was seen talking to the two parties on the final day of the farewell Test of senior cricketer Mahela Jayawardena at the SSC Grounds.
In consequent to these peace efforts, the SLC President sent out another letter to the stakeholders announcing that the meeting about the money distribution was put off for an unspecified date.
I am still wondering. There was one item in this episode that I could not understand. Now what the Lankan sports authorities have conveyed to the ICC is that the Lankan cricket is governed by a democratically elected team which is working for the development of the game. With the last election supposed to be made of that ingredient, were we hoodwinking the cricket authority of the world or else were we hoodwinking ourselves by just saying, “Look at us we are doing the right thing”?
In this case, one even could find fault with the ICC for keeping mum to the mumbo jumbo of respective cricket officials in the world arena – especially in the Indian subcontinent.
In Pakistan, the cricket is still in the fists of people in political power and cricket and the cricketers come second. In Bangladesh, once again one has to be in the political system to be powerful in cricket administration. In India, the system is becoming very political by the hour and the State system is full of political cronies. Then in Sri Lanka, the real Chief Executive Officer in cricket is the Sports Minister under the powers vested in him by the Sports Law. The rest of the gang comes after him and the wishes of the political top. Even now they hold the power of dissolving or appointing the so called elected membership or the count of cronies that they desire.
Travelling back to the money distributing gig by the officialdom many things run across my mind. Yes, they are engaged in the dutiful exercise of giving out money to stake holders to upgrade their facilities at their own institutions. We hear the representative who looks after the nationalised services has requested Rs. 20 million and is promising to upgrade the facilities at the Nationalised Services Ground at Ratmalana. Good, these facilities should be upgraded to be in line with the modern day demands.
Yet, prior to embarking on such a gigantic project which even has bisected the centre of power of our local cricket why not think of building the basic facility of correcting bowling actions of suspect bowlers because we already have started working earnestly towards the combat of the bent arm decease.
Now what is the aftermath of the infamous cricket fight? The infighting has been reignited. Dharmadasa wants to get even with Ranatunga and the vehicle he is using for that purpose is Ashley de Silva who carries the job description of the CEO – SLC. In a letter sent out by the SLC President the job description of the SLC, CEO was spelled out. But, in reality does he have the freedom to send a press release without interference?
Before, the status quo was not different. The SLC CEO did not have the freedom to act on his own. Even at ICC meetings where the SLC CEO is expected to attend, it was SLC secretary Nishantha Ranatunga who was representing the Lankan interests.
In short, the Lankan game of cricket is run by a flawed system beginning from the Minister of Sports. The wrongs have gone too deep for redemption. Yet, with the present infighting things would only get worse.
Yet, magically, with all these clowns doing their tomfoolery, the Lankan cricket is doing fine and winning accolades. But, how long can we keep fooling ourselves saying everything is ‘tikitiboo’.