Sports

The greatest cricket clash –even bigger than the World Cup final is scheduled for the 15th of July and is billed to be played at the Maitland Place venue. It is of such importance that the governing body of World Cricket -- the ICC is flying in two umpires to officiate at the event.

At the same time please somebody educate me! Do they send in monitors to cover the Annual General Meetings of the Australian Cricket Board or the English Cricket Elections if they do have any?Ironically if some cares genuinely about the most popular game in the country, one would wonder if the United Nations would want to send in a set of monitors if they just hear about the horror stories that went around in the aftermath of the Colombo District Cricket Association elections on Friday.

Coming back to the match preview, the previous week ended with the former Deputy Minister of Sports Sripathy Suriyarachchi howling about his human rights being violated by the refusal of his nomination to run for the President of SLC. Then at the turn of the weekend the minister of Sports Jeewan Kumaranatunge had given his consent to his former deputy to be in the fray. However the only puzzling item was that Suriyarachchi --on whose platform that the veteran politician was going to contest as the Thilanga camp that backed him first had already kept their faith in battle-scarred war veteran Mohan de Silva. When asked of a Thilanga stalwart he explained “as far we know it is Mohan de Silva who is coming forward as the candidate from our camp, if at all Suriyarachchi, if he is contesting he will come in as an independent candidate”. Alas! at the last moment president Mahinda Rajapaksa nipped the bid in the bud.

This at once took me on to another path. It is also said that at least two prominent members from the Thilanga camp are ready with life jackets to jump ship if they feel that their vessel is sinking. They say that the above mentioned are hoping to do so at the last possible moment. If so was this move to bring in Sripathy Suriarachchi a kind of shadow boxing?

Both camps were hard at work. Suddenly on Tuesday The Sunday Times sports desk was told that the story appearing to the effect that the minister has given the greenlight to Sripathy Suriyarachchi was false, but a few minutes later when the minister confirmed that he really had given his consent to his former deputy we learned that a member of a certain camp was trying to lead the press down the wrong alley.

In this despicable gory atmosphere the only solace was that some of the prominent former national and leading club cricketers have gelled themselves together to fight for the cause. A move of this nature is always welcome.

It also should be said that this move has not been something that has been orchestrated overnight. Some months ago prior to this hullabaloo with elections, I was having a friendly chat with a former Sri Lanka opening batsman on the phone. Then while engaged in serious but irreproducible facts he lamented that he was sure that without the cricketers themselves seriously getting involved in the proceedings, Sri Lanka cricket may reach a point of no return in the not too distant future. The cricketers had asked the SLC’s Cricket Committee to be brought into its constitution so that all the cricketing decisions could be taken by this apex body. At the same time they were also looking at eleven positions in the SLC ex-co so that they also could keep an eye on the day-to-day proceedings in administrative matters. However the cricketers also had indicated that if they were to come forward they would have to come in uncontested. In the aftermath they had gone to the two feuding factions and put forward their proposals for which the Dharmadasa faction had agreed while the Sumathipala faction had said that they had their own band of cricketers to support him.

The result? The cricketers were back to square one. The spokesman for the band of cricketers, former Sri Lanka fast bowler Pramodya Wickremasinghe, explained “We wanted to come uncontested, but as the Thilanga Sumathipala led group says that they have their own band of cricketers to support them and they could guarantee us being uncontested at the elections, it is true that we are at square one. However as the Dharmadasa group has agreed to accede to our demands we are supporting him on principle.

“We have a sizable band of cricketers in our camp and we have had several meetings too. So far the cricketers who are supporting the move are – Arjuna Ranatunge (who is in England and has spoken to Aravinda de Silva on this ), Sidath Wettimuny, Graeme Labrooy, Kaushiek Amalean, Romesh Kaluwitharana, Asoka de Silva, Ashley de Silva, Asantha de Mel, Don Anurasiri, Amal Silva, Ken de Alwis, Ranil Abeynaike, Nishantha Ranatunge Lalith Kaluperuma, Rochana Jayawardena, Ranjith Madurasinghe and Jayananda Warnaweera. Besides this there are two past cricketers who are involved with the ICC at present who are supporting us along with some other cricketers who are employed by the SLC whose names we have withheld for obvious reasons.

“We had proposed that our cricket committee was going to comprise – Arjuna Ranatunge, Aravinda de Silva, Roshan Mahanama, Sidath Wettimuny, Ranjan Madugalle and Asoka de Silva while the proposed tournament committee chairman would have been Ranil Abeynaike and the umpire’s committee chairman would have been Don Anurasiri. The latter would also sit along with the Cricket Committee in their official capacities.

“Meanwhile we also have requested for a meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa and are awaiting his response. The moment he gives us the green light a group of us will go and apprise him of the current situation and about our concerns on Sri Lanka cricket.”