As Cricket Age confirmed yesterday itself, The meeting, called by Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara on today, to revamp Cricket, has turned out a total disaster.
Dayasiri had invited all the former players and administrators of the country to give their thoughts on the current situation of the cricket in Sri Lanka. But, as there is a common perception in Sri Lanka cricket fraternity that Dayasiri has been deliberately protecting Thilanga Sumathipala led SLC, almost everyone escaped the meeting.
“Whether a report as to why SLC failed is available from the President and the CEO to evaluate” was the main concern amongst all the former players and administrators, whom Dayasiri had invited.
Only the coaching staff, IT department and the board members were present at the meeting, along with Former captain Angelo Mathews and fast bowler Dhammika Prasad and other members of current men’s and women’s team.
Only Aravinda De Silva, a close aide of Sumathipala and Ranjith Fernando were the notable presence amongst former heavyweights at the meeting, along with former treasurer Nuski Mohammad and KM Nelson. Even, commentators like Russel Arnold were not present, though they could have brought lot of ideas from the Indian past cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar, Murali Karthik, that were with them.
With the almost total boycott former players and administrators made it clear to Dayasiri that a change is eminent, and if he will not take stern action against Current SLC administration, no one will come forward to serve Sri Lanka cricket, and he will be held responsible for the debacle of the game in the country!
There was no proper mediator nor the proper agenda in the meeting.
And it is beyond imagination, how can SLC achieve strategic initiatives and operational issues in a half day brain storming session. In real world, this sort of a brainstorming session takes a minimum of 3 days, not during a busy office day.
This is an eye wash to hoodwink the cricket loving public, and a real joke, as the current cricketers can not talk with freedom, but will need to only listen.
