With the intervene of Sports Minister Faizer Mustapha, Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) somehow managed to escape the international embarrassment by sorting out the hotel rooms crisis for their national team ahead of second test at Kandy against England. However, in the eternal inquiry, Sports Ministry has found that Aruna De Silva, the controversial head of administration at SLC, purposefully messed up everything and tried to malign the image of the cricket board!
On 1st November, Cricket Age had published the news that SLC is mulling over to shift the second test to Colombo, after five star hotel in Kandy Earl Regency refused to give rooms to Sri Lanka team.
According to sources, SLC had sent a purchase order to Earl Regency in September itself.
However Aruna De Silva messed it up with miscommunication between Earl and tour operator Aitken Spence.
As a head of administration at SLC and head of tour organizing committee for England tour, Aruna De Silva could not place things in proper way, thus painted wrong image of the board in such a high profile series.
It is noteworthy that Aruna De Silva is considered as one of the close associate of former SLC President Thilanga Sumathipala. After Sumathipala’s departure from the SLC on May 31st, Aruna De Silva has mysteriously been involved in ruining the image of the board time and again. During the South Africa series in August, he was accused of leaking some confidential facts about Sports Minister Faizer Mustapha’s complimentary tickets distribution. Last month, he manipulated things with Sri Lanka’s leading car dealer Carmart to get an updated version of luxury vehicle without any extra cost. Interestingly, Carmart belongs to Sumathipala’s relative’s.
Now, if not for the timely intervention from the Sports Minister, SLC would have faced international shame!
“It seems that someone from the SLC wants to show that without Sumathipala, Sri Lanka Cricket is bound to suffer. Honorable Sports Minister has come to the conclusion that this is the reason, this sort of things are happening again and again” a top official of Sports Ministry told Cricket Age.
