Sri Lanka’s dashing left hander Kusal Perera’s snub from the recently concluded Zimbabwe tour is one of the biggest mystery of recent times. Unfortunately, a Sports Minister, who is unaware about the existence of cricket in the Island, blindly believed in the ‘self scripted’ theory of Ashley De Silva, the controversial CEO of Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC), thus missed an opportunity to expose the ‘real‘ reason of Perera’s exclusion.
As soon as Sri Lanka had announced the 15-members squad for Zimbabwe tests, it created a big controversy, largely due to the absence of dynamic Kusal Perera. Not only cricket fans, legendary Mahela Jayawardena and renowned Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle were also amused with Perera’s snub.
Later, Dallas Alahapperuma, Sri Lanka Sports Minister, also summoned SLC CEO Ashley De Silva over the matter. However, as minister doesn’t know anything about cricket, Ashley easily managed to convince him for issuing a mere warning to not repeat the same kind of mistakes in the future.
However, the Sports Ministry missed a trick by not ordering for an inquiry. Reason, Kusal Perera’s exclusion from Zimbabwe tests was not only a selection decision! The incident, that shocked entire cricket fraternity, has many layers and raises plenty of questions against Sri Lanka’s national chief selector Asantha De Mel’s ethics and his credibility for the post.
Asantha has always been a biased selector for Sri Lanka! His soft corner of non-performers like Lahiru Thirimane and Dinesh Chandimal is well known.
However, it’s still not too late, even if now Dallas Alahapperuma orders for an inquiry, as it will ‘unmask’ the real ugly face of Asantha De Mel, a politically appointed Chief selector!
