Royal owns up to playing unregistered player, loses points
Royal played against St. Joseph's two weeks ago - File pic by Ranjith Perera
The Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association (SLSCA) has decided that Royal College Colombo forfeit points earned from two matches during the ongoing Under (U)-19 Division I Cricket season, in consequence to playing an unregistered player in its U-19 XI. The discovery, interestingly, was made by the Royal College authorities itself, who officially informed the SLSCA of their own negligence.
Consequently, the SLSCA held an inquiry on February 6 and directed the Royal College Cricket officials to withdraw this player from their list, as his name is not among the school’s 30 registered list of players. In addition, the SLSCA informed Royal that it would lose match points of two games where the unregistered player participated.
The player, who is still a junior from the U-15 pool, is a spin bowler and had impressed the Royal coaching staff, where he ended up playing three 1st XI matches. Accordingly, the SLSCA will not grant points for Royal in their games against St. Benedict’s College and St. Joseph’s College. “However, the said player had also appeared for Royal in their 1st XI game against St. Anthony’s College Katugastota, which is not a tournament match and hence, will not affect the team,” SLSCA Secretary, Kapila Jayalath told the Sunday Times.
“There are 36 teams in 4 Groups, playing in Division I of the Singer Schools Tournament. Each team is expected to play 8 Tournament matches. In addition, the SLSCA will count 5 more matches nominated by each school, to make a total of 13 games played during the season. Any team has the liberty to play more or less matches. Royal’s match against St. Benedict’s was a Group match of the Tournament, while their encounter against St. Joseph’s was one of the 5 nominated by Royal. For those two games the SLSCA will impose the penalty, as the said player is not a part of the 30 registered list of Royal for the 13 games. But the match against St. Anthony’s Katugastota is a traditional/friendly encounter, and out of the list, which we do not count, and give the team the liberty to field any playing XI they wish to, including ‘Big Matches’,” Jayalath explained.
Royal College Head Coach Suranga Wijenayake, a seasoned Cricketing figure with experience in coaching top schools, explained, “We accept that Royal had made a mistake at this point, and the matter was brought to the notice of the school authorities. Royal is certainly a school following guidelines and norms of the SLSCA, and there had been a miscommunication on this matter. However, it’s also an accepted fact that schools always are eager to feature youngsters from the junior category on merit. For that purpose the SLSCA authorities should be a bit more flexible by permitting schools add at least 5 to 10 players when the season is in progress. I say this because, it’s a situation I have faced as a coach, even in the past with other school teams,” Wijenayake stated.
In reply, SLSCASecretary Jayalath stated, “The SLSCA decided to limit the registration list of players to 30 per school, purely because of legitimacy. We will have ample time to verify and notify the schools if there are any issues thereupon. A team could always register less than 30 players and keep a few slots open to add new players, but that too, has to be completed before the end of the Round 2. In my view, the SLSCA has acted in a reasonable manner on this. Nevertheless, we respect Royal College for their transparency, they were very helpful, forthcoming and were highly cooperative.”