Former off-spinner Ranjith Madurusinghe’s removal from the newly appointed 6 member selection committee has stirred a controversy in Sri Lanka cricket. Madurusinghe, who over the years nurtured more than a dozen of next generation players for Sri Lanka, was coordinating youth selectors and school selection coordinators, who were working in groups Island wide. Along with Tim Maccasil, head of National Cricket Development, Madurusinghe and his colleagues had already conducted more than 50 talent profiling sessions to identify U19 players. Now his removal has made the much talked about Youth programme meaningless.
Interestingly, just few months ago Madurusinghe was asked by the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to work with Tim on this Youth programme. Now, he has been removed altogether, in mysterious circumstances.
After Cricket Age highlighted the consequences of his removal earlier in the day, now higher authorities are blaming each other for the perfect mess. Following are the statement of members/insiders of the higher authorities:
National Sports Council: His name was not sent by the SLC.
National Selection Committee: We asked for the more names multiple times from the SLC, but his name was not there in the proposed candidates.
Technical advisory Committee: His name was not sent by the SLC.
SLC: How it’s possible that we wouldn’t send his name, when we appointed him chairman of youth selection committee few months ago and asked him to work on youth programme along with Tim Maccasil. His name was there in the every list we sent for approvals.
Obviously, either SLC is telling lie or Sports Council, National Selection Committee and Technical advisory Committee flag bearers are making Cricket Board a scapegoat. The question is: instead of playing the blame game, will concerned authorities correct the grave mistake?
Yesterday, Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa, on the recommendation of the National Sports Council, Technical Advisory Committee and the National Selection Committee, appointed former Sri Lanka fast-bowler Pramodya Wickramasinghe as the Chairman of the six-member cricket selection committee with immediate effect. Other members of the committee are: Romesh Kaluwitharana, Hemantha Wickramaratne, Varuna Waragoda, Uvaisul Karnain and B.A. Thilaka Nilmini Gunaratne.
