Sri Lanka Cricket will host a T20 charity match, featuring players from around the world, for the benefit of “disaster-affected children”, in Colombo, on September 8.
“All the funds raised through this event will go to Cricket Aid, not only to support the disaster affected children, plus there were a lot of areas that were affected by flood,” SLC SEO Ashley de Silva said.
“In the recent past, some parts were also affected by drought. We have also been supporting our former cricketers and commentators who are in a financial crisis. There were some cricketers in the recent past who had cancer and we wanted to support them” he further stated.
However, SLC could not confirm the names of any players who would be involved, nor could they announce how much money they expected to raise.
The Initiative To Help the affected of drought is good, without a doubt. But, the functioning of SLC under Thilanga Sumathipala is so notorious that, it raises many questions. There were two another fund raising initiatives : in England in 2016 and in Australia, during the t20 series in earlier this year. But, know one knows the outcome of those events! No one knows, how much funds were raised by those two initiatives?
The questions that need to be asked from Thilanga and his Executive Committee are:-
1. For Sri Lanka Cricket to make know to the public the final accounts of funds raised through Cricket Aid in England in 2016.
2. The funds raised in Australia during the T/20 series with Australia.
3. For the present Charity Match if any has come forward to assist SLC by way of sponsors
4. The exact budget or estimated budget that will be utilized by SLC for this event. Is it close to 100 million?
5. Why is Thilanga shifting his focus to raise funds when he has come forward to develop cricket and his focus should be on grass root level cricket.
6. Proper Club Cricket Tournaments and its infrastructure and resources to Clubs.
7. The Professional Provincial Structure forwarded by Mahela Jayawardena.
8. How much does he envisage raising through this event?
These are some serious questions, sumathipala and Co. need to address publically, before another fundraiser!
