Rex Clementine in Delhi
When defending champions Sri Lanka made an inglorious exit from the 1999 Cricket World Cup having failed to progress to the second round, former President Chandrika Kumaratunga acted fast. She didn’t spare anyone. The board was sacked, the captain was sacked and so were the selectors, coach, team manager. In the process she angered many people.
The Board President’s family were staunch SLFPers and had funded the party for decades. The captain was her Cabinet Minister’s son. Many other stakeholders’ better halves had rubbed shoulders with her either at St. Bridget’s or at Colombo – 7.
The measures she took even angered her Sports Minister. But Chandrika didn’t hide behind excuses. She was determined to clean up the mess.
CBK was smart in her choices as well. She didn’t appoint an ex-cricketer to head the committee to run cricket. Instead, she chose a banker. Rienzie T. Wijetilleke is his name. One of the biggest problems facing the sport at that time was corruption and accountability. Wijetilleke brought financial discipline back to cricket.
Then she picked other eminent sportsmen like S. Skandakumar, Michael Tissera and Sidath Wettimuny to run the sport. Things were back on track within weeks.
Sri Lanka not only beat Australia, who had been just crowned World Champions in an ODI series but recorded their first Test win over the Aussies as well. The changes she introduced stood in good stead and Sri Lanka went onto win ten Test matches in a row under a new captain, coach and a selection panel.
The public was all praise for Chandrika for her bold move. But she paid a heavy price. Her government toppled as aggrieved parties licked their wounds and then showed their might by triggering mass crossovers.
But the iron lady wasn’t afraid to take decisions. Had she been in power at the moment, she would have cleaned up this mess, appointed competent men to run the sport and helped Sri Lanka regain the past glories.
Will Ranil take a leaf out of CBK’s book and act? Some have run down Ranil as a weak leader and here’s an opportunity for him to show to the nation it’s far from the truth.
Sadly, some of Ranil’s loyalists like Sagala Ratnayake and Harin Fernando are fans of the current cricket administration. They will be stumbling blocks for bringing in change. If Ranil entertains them, his beloved UNP will fare worse than what they did in the last general elections for people are angry that the sport they love has suffered many setbacks and humiliations.
Thursday night’s embarrassment wasn’t just one off. In the last three years, Sri Lanka have played three qualifying round tournaments in ICC events and right now they are in danger of being knocked out of the Champions Trophy.
Let there be an Interim Committee not to run for a couple of years, but to oversee the affairs of cricket until the new constitution that has been drafted by the retired Supreme Court judge is passed by an act of Parliament and let the new governance structure take place. That will make all stakeholders happy.
We have had too many Interim Committees in the last two and half decades. Let’s put an end to it all by changing our governance structure. Barring the first two Interim Committees, most others that were appointed were to entertain the friends of politicians.
As for the current administration, they have blundered by not being able to move with times like rest of the world has done. They boast of having made record profits but were not able to put up a swimming pool or an indoor nets facility for our High Performance Programme.
They are unable and unwilling to take unpopular decisions for the betterment of the sport. Their lack of foresight has dragged the game into this mess. They need to be replaced without any delay so that fresh thinking can come in and address these issues.