Whenever Thilanga Sumathipala, the President of Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC), Backs something, he gives his full support to it and spends lavishly. The same thing is happening with the Sri Lanka Women’s cricket right now. With, Central Contracts for 30 women’s cricketers, a so called scouting project for outstations and three Women’s cricket officials are working as SLC employees and millions of rupees being spent on the development of the Women’s cricket, the bitter truth is that the national team has been in a sorry status for long time now!
At a time, when Sri Lanka U19 Cricket has suffered in a big way with the marketing department of SLC couldn’t find even an proper sponsor for the boys even for prestigious tournaments like Asia Cup and recently concluded world cup in New Zealand, Sri Lanka Women’s team has been enjoying all the preliveges through the board.
In 2017, the same year when Sri Lanka domestic cricket entirely ruined due to the inability of K. Mathivanan, the Controversial vice president of SLC and U19 team completely derailed with some embarrassing losses, SLC invested (or wasted) millions on establishing the women’s cricket, with an entire structure being developed for the enhancement and proliferation throughout the island.
The hilarious part is that the So called ‘talent hunt’ project of SLC had been established with the aim of finding young talents from the outstations.
According to sources, Apsari Tillakaratne, Convener for women’s cricket, is overseeing the project, but for no benefit to the cricket! Under the super vision of Apsari Tillakaratne, SLC conducted talent search camps throughout the island, and then conducted an under 23 district tournament with chosen players from each camp.
However, the performance of women’s team in last one year suggests all these exercises were just money wasting. In last one year, the performance of women’s team is nothing less than disastrous. In middle of the 2017, Women’s development squad went to Thailand and lost embarrassingly. In world cup, the outcome was the same, as the team could only win a solitary match against Pakistan out of the seven matches in group stage, being played in England in the middle of the 2017.
The main reason for the disastrous showing in last one year is that the younger women’s cricketer has been unable to perform consistently, while the seniors like Sashikala Siriwardena and Shripali Weerakkody were unable to motivate. There is only Chamari Atthapathtu in the team, who can claim to be a world class player.
“It is a mystery how Sri Lanka Women’s Cricket is getting so much aid and support from the SLC, that too without any good or encouraging performance” a Source told Cricket Age.
And as if it is not enough, the three officials of women’s cricket : Apsari Tillakaratne, Indrani Ariyaratne (Manager), Padma Karunaratne (cordinator) : are working as employees of SLC as well.
However, with the undeserved (because there is no encouraging performance from the team in recent times) importance to Women’s Cricket, the U19 setup has been suffering big time, with no financial support at all.
“Sri Lanka U19 cricketers are as talented as Indian counterparts. However, SLC focus is on women’s cricket, so U19 setup has been kept in wilderness” the source revealed further.
But then, this has become the norm with SLC : to back and support undeserved things, mainly because of some ‘Mysterious’ reasons!
