The Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is likely to announce a single national selection committee for all three national teams – Men’s, women’s and Junior – comprising of five members soon, Cricket Age reliably learns.
After the consultation with National Sports Council and National Selection committee, the Sports Ministry is gearing up for sending back the approved five-members committee to the SLC.
The noble concept of a single committee has come into the consideration to follow country’s Sports Law, which says that there must be only one selection committee for each Sport Association.
Cricket Age understand that in the Single Selection Committee, there will be total 5 Selectors – Asantha De Mel (Chairman), Chaminda Mendis and Pramodaya Wickramasinghe. Two other members will be Ranjith Madurusinghe (as Junior Selector chairman) and Hemantha Devapriya (as Women’s Selector chairman). Then, Under the SLC purview, there will be another two sub committees – One for Junior team, other for the Women’s Team.
Earlier in the day, Cricket Age had published that the Idea has been discussed among the decision making authorities and the final approval will be given by the Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa.
“Yes, there will be a single selection committee for all the national teams, instead of appointing separate committees, which is a right way in moving forward” an Insider at Sports Ministry told Cricket Age.
It’s noteworthy that, at present, Sri Lanka cricket doesn’t have any selection committee – National, women’s or junior even. The contracts of all the selection committees have long been expired. Since then, as there is no domestic or International cricket is taking place in the country, the process of appointing new committees is taking much more time than the expected.
In the expired men’s team selection committee, politically backed incompetent and clueless Asantha De Mel was leading the show. In junior committee, meanwhile, former Sri Lanka player Ranjith Madurusinghe and his colleagues (sans Farveez Maharoof) once again made an everlasting impression, by unearthing a plethora of young players across the country. Their efforts, however, were undermined by a biased coach Hashan Tillakratne and one of the junior selector Farveez Maharoof, who ruined Sri Lanka’s U19 World Cup campaign, by manipulating the entire selection process.
Sri Lanka last played a series against West Indies in February and all their international assignments have been put off due to the Covid-19 outbreak, which has paralyzed entire world since then. Due to the pandemic, Sri Lanka has already lost out on hosting a couple of high-profile cricket series. In March, England’s two-Test tour of Sri Lanka was postponed after the ECB requested for it due to the growing threat of the virus. Then, India’s tour of Sri Lanka was also called off, an assignment that could have seen India played three ODIs and three T20Is starting June end and continuing till July. Just few weeks ago, Bangladesh’s three-Test tour of Sri Lanka was also postponed indefinitely, following a stalemate between the BCB and SLC over quarantine requirements, with weeks of negotiation failing to yield an agreement between the two boards.
At present, SLC is gearing up for much talked about Lanka Premier League (LPL), which is scheduled to be played sometime in this month. Powerful SLC vice president Ravin Wickramratne is overseeing the LPL, as tournament director.
