In June this year, Sri Lanka head coach Chandika Hathurasingha had a brief stay in West Indies. Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) need to find out the real reason of his stay. Or SLC itself already knows it?
The incident happened after the conclusion of Sri Lanka’s West Indies tour, where they played three match test series. Even though Sri Lanka managed to draw the series 1-1, it had turned out a disasterous tour, largely due to ball tampering controversy during the second test.
It was a complete mess up, as Hathurasingha, then team manager Asanka Gurusinha and captain Dinesh Chandimal were slapped with multiple charges. Later, the International Cricket Council (ICC) suspended the trio for certain number of international matches. Further, the incident established a wrong perception about Sri Lanka cricket!
After the conclusion of the series, Sri Lanka media was waiting for team’s arrival with barrage of questions. However, when team arrived, Hathurusingha was not with the squad. He was in West Indies. At that particular time itself, Cricket Age was the only one to publish the story of Hathurusingha’s mysterious stay in West Indies.
At that time, after Cricket Age published the news, SLC explained that Hathurusingha stayed back in West Indies, because he was planning to go to UK for the inspection before the World Cup! It was a bizzare excuse. An inspection one year ago! Even the most powerful and richest cricket board BCCI is not that much courageous! Later, according to SLC, Hathurusingha went to Australia and returned to Sri Lanka without going to UK! Then came another excuse that Hathurusingha couldn’t get his visa on time! Another bizzare excuse, like SLC was doing the visa process for the first time!
Now, five months later, when it has emerged that Hathurusingha has been short listed for West Indies head coach job (according to highly placed sources at West Indies Cricket Board), the incident that happened in June looks mysterious.
And it raises many questions as well! Is latest outcome connected to Hathurusingha’s stay in June? Is SLC telling the truth about Hathurusingha stay back then? Does SLC knows the real facts? Did Hathurusingha stay there for his interview? How much money SLC spent on Hathurusingha’s stay back then? And if it is true, isn’t a betrayal to the country?
