 When I heard about the court order in the fundamental rights case filed by the United Southern Sports Club, asking the Sports Minister to hold elections at the beleaguered Sri Lanka Cricket, I came to one conclusion.
I thought at least this move may put one word in the queens’ language back in its appropriate place in the dictionary. Because for the past many a moon the Sports Ministers of Sri Lanka had used this particular English word -- interim -- in the wrong sense. Now since 2004 the Interim Committee of Sri Lanka Cricket has been going on with many faces and phases with much disregard to the rights and aspirations of the general cricketing community of this country.
With all due respects to the court decision ordering democratic elections at the citadel of cricket by July 6, I still do have reservations whether the judgement could restore good governance, transparency and accountability in cricket in this resplendent island.
The reason being in any sort of administration that is elected or concocted, there is a lack of accountability and this was corroborated by Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) summoning Sri Lanka Cricket officials following allegations of match fixing and financial misappropriation. Also this is not the very first time the doings at cricket’s headquarters have been a subject in parliament.
 Yes, at one juncture even while in the arena as a full Test playing member only a few people had the time or the liking to devote their entire lives for this cause. There was one reason to this.
The game of cricket in this country had its recognition, but it did not yield very many ‘green backs’. So, though being a full member of the ICC, Sri Lankan Cricket was not recognised as the place to be and even the cricketers who indulged in the game, sometimes did not take such pride in wearing the crest. However, the 1994 Sri Lanka tour to India where the Lankans lost all three Tests put some fright and sense to some players that mattered at that time.
Ten years ago veteran journalist Mahinda Wijesinghe writing to the Island newspaper said, “For the record, on the 1994 tour of India, Sri Lanka lost all three Tests by an innings (and 119 runs at Lucknow, and 95 runs at Bangalore, and 17 runs at Ahmedabad) while all the games finished inside 4 days. The one-day series ended 2-1 in favour of India. In the Test at Lucknow, the specific match which [M.K.] Gupta, the bookmaker alleged that match-fixing took place; it was unfortunate that both Ranatunga (9 & 0) and de Silva (13 & 11) failed.
“Soon after the tour, the Ex-co of the Sri Lanka Cricket Board appointed a probe committee chaired by S. Skandakumar, comprising the late Brig. Dennis Hapugalle, Anura Tennekoon, Lasantha Rodrigo, M. Seevaratnam and Tryphon Mirando (secretary), to report on the disastrous tour. The committee interviewed the key personnel on the tour namely, the officials M/s A. Polonnowita (Manager), B. Warnapura (Cricket Manager) and a few of the key players including Ranatunga and de Silva. Severe strictures were passed on both players at the end of the sittings. Ranatunga, inter alia, was found ‘as a result of his excessive weight had a tendency to field in relatively insignificant positions and was therefore unable to raise the morale of his team when things went wrong, which was quite often" and not to have ...played an effective role as Captain’ while of de Silva it was reported that ‘it is difficult to concede that he set an example with his batting and the manner of some of his dismissals can only be termed as being irresponsible.’
"There is evidence that a Bookmaker of Indian origin has attempted to make his presence felt in the national cricket scene. The subject of ‘gambling with the toss" had been a point of discussion at one of the team meetings on tour. There is however, no further evidence available on this field.’ Remember this observation was made in March 1994.”
Later Musings learned that after this misdemeanor things turned right for Sri Lankan cricket and those who indulged in the game played with better purpose. The finding of this probe had made the Lankan cricketers learn that there is something called accountability.
So much so two years later Sri Lanka won Cricket’s biggest dream. They brought home the Cricket World Cup.
After Sri Lanka had won the World Cup, the game began to derail again. This time it was the administrators who were at fault. Why, the money was pouring in and more people wanted a piece of the cake.
Gradually the game’s administration floated upon a different culture. If one could buy the club votes, he became the undisputed chief of cricket.
The more cultured administrators and past cricketers began to stay clear of the happenings.
Then after the disastrous 1999 World Cup defence, the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s administration introduced the first Interim Cricket Committee which was headed by respected banker Rienzie Wijetilleke backed by a powerful team that had by now opted out of the game.
After an interim period there were elections and the worm turned again till the political administration then introduced another well-known business administrator – Hemaka Amarasuriya as the second IC chairman.
At the elections that followed, Lanka’s cricket was back on the same old track and this led to another lawyer businessman Vijeya Malalasekera being given the chair.
After an interim period, the Malalasekera administration gave way to the democratic system and the same train was up and running again and the last such change of power in cricket occurred in 2004 till it became the permanent Interim Committee that is being run with only some chairs moving according to the fancies of the sports minister of the time.
The crux of the fault lies here. Neither the elected body nor the interim set-up does serve cricket’s purpose. A good Interim Committee would not hold on to power indefinitely while a badly elected body will always want to be back – by hook or by crook.
There is a general lack of accountability in cricket’s dealings and when a project is done, there are more questions than answers. This has been the bane of our cricket administration.
While wracking my brains on this, a former respected administrator came to my rescue. He suggested, “Why not we have a democratically elected process with the cricketing community having the say to their destination. But, the system should have some accountability. To achieve this, we could introduce a system where former Interim Committee heads and even the elected ones (Not the ones who were removed by respective ministers for various reasons) form a board of governors to be in-charge of the game. Then the elected representatives will be directly responsible to the Board of Governors and this would lead to a position where the Minister of Sports could relax and look after the rest of the sports while the richest and the most professional sport in Sri Lanka is run as it should.
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