Controlling Clubs up in arms against Sri Lanka Cricket
Michael de Zoysa stressing a point
Now the stake holders of cricket are getting discontented and vocal – especially the Controlling Clubs. On Thursday night the Controlling Clubs led by the SSC met at their Club Premises and to write to Sri Lanka Cricket demanding an under 23 tournament while calling the ongoing T-20 tournament a waste of time.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, SSC stalwart Michael de Zoysa pushed his point. He said “All the Controlling Clubs who were invited may — be besides Galle CC — were represented and we discussed the tournament structure and came to the conclusion that we should push for an under 23 tournament straightaway because Sri Lanka Cricket have not been having any cricket for any appreciable length of time.”
De Zoysa further said “At present there is the Provincial Tournament which is unnecessary. They call it the Provincial Tournament, but, none of the Provinces are involved in organising this tournament. The organisational part here was done by Sri Lanka Cricket. There is no necessity for a T-20 tournament at this juncture. So we will draft a letter and all agreed they will sign and letter forward the letter to Sri Lanka Cricket.
“At the same time the tournament will consist of only fourteen teams, which will be involved in quality cricket. There will be eleven clubs and there would be an invitational XI from the Kurunegala District and another from the Kandy District while the other will have to be named. We will ask SLC for approval and a grant to go ahead with the tournament.”
He said that the clubs who met also agreed that in the future only fourteen teams will be involved in the Premier League Tournament. Zoysa said that they agreed on ways to make the tournament more competitive. He said “They had only a limited number of clubs playing top division cricket before we were granted Test status up to winning the ICC World Cup in 1996. Therefore players had to fight for places in the club teams making them competitive. Now there is cricket played all over making them weak and non-competitive. We are going to be firm in this stance.
“There is bound to be talk about the rest of the others, but, sorry if you do not have your own ground you’re out. If there is a will there are ways make things happen. For instance the Chilaw Marians wanted a home venue so they hired a ground and made it their own home venue. If there is a club without a ground they would have to be located in the greater Colombo area and not in Kurunegala or Hambantota. Then they would have to play on the opponent’s home venue.”
De Zoysa also added that once that mechanism is in place we will also push for Premier matches to be played on home and away basis. “It is the system all round the world, it had always been so. Now they have got away from that because various parties were interested in other methods.” De Zoysa added.
With regard to the crisis in cricket, Zoysa said that they are awaiting the outcome of the meeting between Sports Minister Faiszer Musthapha and the ICC which will take place on the 29th of this month. Only after that we will be writing to the minister. “However our thoughts on the matter are — we do not have to wait until December to wait for an AGM. To form an elections committee it will not take four months, an elections committee can be set up in four days. Then it is a matter of sending out the notices and calling for nominations. You can have the AGM within two months if they really want to. If whoever wants to hang on to power he can have his own political platform. However the consensus was that we could hold the Cricket AGM well before the 31st of December 2018.
“Then the question arose about the court case that the Ranatunge has brought up. That hearing is on the 3rd of September. That is more to do with the game than the election committee and who is eligible to hold or contest for office. Either of those things should not delay the holding of the elections”