Cricket polls: In search of a saviour
There is never a dull a moment at Sri Lanka cricket when management is concerned. On January 3, cricket’s stakeholders in this little island will vote to decide as to who should hold the reins of the game for the next two years.
Yes, right at this moment, the poor cricket voters are striving with might and pain to get a foothold in the administration.
They are working around the clock running the hard-yard trying to woo the stakeholders and get their ‘aye at the AGM by a show of hands.
At the moment there is a section of aspirants who are confident and already claiming that they could win about 126 of the total 147 votes, but, in the same breath they are screaming foul that the opposition is trying to scuttle their bid by trying to buy out some of the voters.
Then in the other corner of the ring, their opponents are claiming that if the fight is a clean one without bringing undue pressure on the stakeholders they would be able to come to power to decide the fate of cricket for the next term.
Apparently there is rampant skullduggery – why – to serve the game of cricket and run it the way it should be run.
A few weeks ago, the present Interim Committee chairman, Sidath Wettimuny, said Sri Lanka Cricket was very healthy financially. “Today we have over Rs. 200 million in the bank plus another US$ 4.6 million in reserve with the ICC to come.
When we took over the Interim Committee initially in early April, we started with a Rs. 207 million overdraft and owed US$ 7.8 million to the ICC and the Bank of Ceylon. Besides, the amount that they owed to the Bank of Ceylon has been brought down to US$ 370,000 and are planning to settle that shortly”.
Wettimuny also added that in the five months of the interim operation nearly 30 per cent was saved from an expenditure budget of over Rs. 1.4 billion. He said, “This is a good omen. Financially, we will be strong next year.”
This statement was challenged by a group of stakeholders supporting Nishantha Ranatunga. But it is a fact that the incoming the executive committee will not be on the streets with a begging bowl.
In addition, it is also known that the ICC will pay seven of its full-member boards about $10 million each over the next eight years, as part of the Test Cricket Fund announced following the Big Three’s takeover of cricket’s governing body last year.
Accordingly, other than the Big Three boards — India, England and Australia — the remaining full-member boards will each receive $1.25 million annually, beginning January 2016.
The latest figures indicate that each member receiving the Test Match Fund stands to gain $10 million over eight years and the ICC plans to make its first Test Cricket Fund payment of $600,000 or about Rs. 84 million in early January.
Though the ICC has not yet announced the funds’ conditions of usage, or how it will hold the several boards accountable, this means the incoming committee would be on a roll from the word ‘go’.
They would be able to launch their development goals from the very inception and make Sri Lanka a better pitch to play the game.
On Wednesday the Ranatunga faction opened its inning by handing over the nomination of Nishantha Ranatunga (President) and Hirantha Perera (Secretary) leaving the rest of the slots open.
The Thilanga Sumathipala faction has yet to make its first move. They have time till Thursday.
Nevertheless, we also beg to ask if the present system of cricket governance in Sri Lanka has yielded the desired results for the game that is by the far the most influential and the richest in the country.
Right now SLC is a highly politicised entity, besides the frequent interferences by the Ministry of Sports who in earnest should have an academic oversee of its proceedings if at all.
In most parts of its hundred-year history of cricket in Sri Lanka, there was political patronage beginning with the late President J.R. Jayewardene heading the institution in 1952.
He was followed by active politicians such as N.M. Perera, T.B. Werapitiya, Gamini Dissanayake, Lakshman Jayakody and Tyronne Fernando.
However, the political patronage at that time was mostly limited to the head of the institution and did not extend to co-stakeholders.
The ugly head of the political patronage in cricket was institutionalised by the advent of the provincial voting system where personalities more akin to hard core politicians than regulars of the game of cricket got into the system. Now it has become a highly exploitable commodity in the voting fray.
A direct result of this demerit was the alienation of a lot of respectable cricket administrators from the system.
Then the very vote of the stakeholders became a bargaining point of the club or the individual rather than a vote for cricket or what the respective parties would do for the betterment of the game.
I am aware that at one of the club meetings, a certain club was arguing as to what benefits that the club would achieve, instead of looking at what the respective factions have in store for the development of the game as a whole.
As a result of such self-centred attitudes, the standards of the game have degenerated. At present the very cradle of cricket, the school cricket system, is one big mess. There is no systematic improvement of the standard of the game.
Yet, there is no way that one could remedy the situation; the school cricket mafia is run by influential stakeholders who cannot be hurt by the actions of the system.
The entire club cricket system at present is on overdrive on the reverse gear. The gap between local cricket and the international call keeps growing by the hour.
The people who know the anatomy of the game are aware of the situation, but, they cannot take realistic remedial measures without trampling a few feet of the stakeholders.
The system spent billions of rupees and built a few grounds with all modern facilities. Are these grounds being used to conduct a first class tournament? How many of our first class cricketers have had the opportunity of using the elite grounds?
We feel that there should be a complete overhaul of the present system. If not, the game of cricket will keep degenerating and with the prevailing system, no head of cricket – be it Thilanga Sumathipala or Nishantha Ranatunga — could bring about any plausible solution.