Thilanga Sumathipala, the former Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) president, has managed to pass the so called resolution on Chief Cricket operations officer Asanka Gurusinha extension with so much ease with his manipulation, that it has put a big question mark on the functioning of the board! The most burning question is: How can President Shammi Silva continue to run the SLC in this scenario, when majority of Executive Committee (ExCo) members still looks at Punchi Borella for final verdict?
The outcome of Sumathipala’s so called resolution has again exposed the inner functioning of SLC and how perfectly former president still manipulate things.
First time in the history of Sri Lanka Cricket, an immediate past President passed a resolution, that too for extending the contract of an employee (Asanka Gurusinha).
As per the SLC constitution, ExCo committee is authorised for taking board decisions.
However, Gurusinha’s matter was exposed the reality of that ExCo committee as well as the cracks within the administration, mainly between Sumathipala and Shammi Silva.
Cricket Age understands that out of 20 ExCo members, 10 members – Sujeewa Godaliyadda, Bandula Dissanayake, Gihan Weerasinghe, Priyantha Zoysa, Mohan De Silva, Lasantha Wickramsingha, K. Mathivanan, Crysantha Kapuwatha, Deepal Mdurapperuma and Marlon Ranasinghe – have agreed to Sumathipala’s resolution, that recommends two years extension for Gurusinha.
SLC President Shammi Silva, Vice president Ravin Wickramaratne, Nalin Aponso and Roshan Iddamalgoda were disagreed with the resolution, with remaining 6 didn’t reply.
Reasons are obvious why Sumathipala succeeded in manipulating! Majority of these ExCo members survives on Sumathipala’s blessings. He is the one who brought them into the ExCo committee. If there would have been a fair and democratic process, no one among those members would have agreed to extend Gurusinha’s contract.
However, under Sumathipala’s pressure, they had to turn out spineless and had to agree!
Then what is the logic to having Shammi Silva as elected president? Punchi Borella should be referred as the SLC headquarter then and Sumathipala should be honored as ‘life time decision maker‘ of Sri Lanka Cricket!
