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Galle talk, Asgiriya twist and next...
A few days ago there was a news report that raged through the cricketing world which had a similar impact as the famous or infamous tsunami. It said it was now the end of the road to the picturesque Galle International Cricket Stadium.

The reason given at that time was rather naive. According to news reports it said that at present no one can rule out the possibility of a another tsunami hitting the island or the possibility of a another tsunami panic and the control of the 10,000 to 15,000 crowd would be a Himalayan task and also the teams that are taking part in the games would not be fully at ease during the games.

Well.... if one decides to run away from a situation owing to a natural disaster, then such a defence becomes vulnerable. The simple reason is that a natural disaster can occur anywhere at any time and there is very little one can do against it. At the same time if the first argument holds weight then the entire coastal belt around country should not be redeveloped including the tourist industry just in case the tsunami reoccurs.

Then, a few days after the Galle talk, another news that surfaced was that in addition to Galle, Kandy which was the other prominent Test venue was also going to lose its status as no Test matches had taken place at the Asgiriya Stadium since the year 2003.

Galle talk, Asgiriya twister, wheels within wheels, the The Sunday Musing sought solace from none other than the president of Sri Lanka Cricket Mohan de Silva.

The first question which was directed at president SLC was -- had they completely given up on the revamping of the Galle International Stadium-- his firm answer was "no". Mohan de Silva iterated "We still have not given up on the Galle International Cricket Stadium, at present the lawyers are going through the facts. However there are several factors that is going against the revamping of the present location if it can be helped".

"The first is that the SLC has no hold of the ground of the Galle Stadium as the ground is owned by the Galle Municipality. The second is that it is located in a archeologically preserved area and as a result we cannot make any more improvements to increase the crowed capacity and thirdly we also cannot increase the parking area as it is located just adjacent to the Galle city centre".

" At present many donor agencies have come forward towards the helping of the revamping of this stadium. However at the same time time we are looking at the bigger picture. Towards this we have been offered two locations at Habaraduwa and Koggala and the land given will be on a ninety-nine-year lease. This means the SLC will have all rights over the ground and if we have the opportunity we could put a state-of-the-art cricket stadium for the South unlike the one we have at present which has its own limitations".

Then the President of the SLC Mohan de Silva, speaking on the Asgiriya issue said: "yet again we have not given up on the Asgiriya Stadium. It is true that the ground has had no game since 2003, but, it still remains as one of our important venues for the time being. Any time we want we can develop this facility and update to the Test requirement with only a small investment. However at present we are not looking at the redevelopment of the Asgiriya Stadium as the proposed Pallekele Stadium is heavily on the cards".

"There are some legal snags regarding the Pallekele Stadium which has impeded its progress of work. The fact is that the present status of Sri Lanka Cricket does not permit it to own any shares in any project. So we are looking at overcoming these legal snags to start work within at least the next two months".

" Sri Lanka Cricket is now shaping up an arm similar to the commercial wing of the ICC -- IDI. The moment we set this up we will have the green light to go ahead with the forthcoming projects" said the SLC president in conclusion.

Then comes the next step. Say the SLC gets the green light to go ahead with the said projects. Then what the public will wait to see is who is getting deeply involved as the whole gamut should be transparent. Projects of this nature could breed a whole generation of the new rich.

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