Ever since his arrival in Sri Lanka as National Team Head Coach in December last year, Chandika Hathurusingha has become one of the most powerful person at Maitland Place. Former Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) Thilanga Sumathipala brought him to Sri Lanka to hide his administration’s wrongdoings and for few months he succeeded as entire focus shifted to Hathurusingha and his ‘innovative’ coaching methods.
Since his arrival, Sri Lanka won three trophies in Bangladesh but failed miserably in shorter formats. Sri Lanka couldn’t reach in the final of the Nidahas trophy and recently lost the ODI series against South Africa.
The fans are still optimistic, though, that Hathurusingha will be able to bring Sri Lanka Cricket glory back.
However, in a shocking revelation Cricket Age learns that Hathurusingha’s contract with the SLC itself is invalid, as Sumathipala Led administration didn’t follow any of the procedure for his appointment.
As Sumathipala led administration was on the ‘ventilator’ (battling with corruption and match fixing charges) Sumathipala plotted Hathurasingha’s hiring. At that time, Hathurusingha was also in state of bother after his fallout with Bangladesh Cricket Board. So, After much drama and hype, Sumathipala managed to bring Hathurusingha in December last year. From SLC, vice president K. Mathivanan played a crucial role in bringing back Hathurusingha. Cricket Age has the access of Hathurusingha’s contract (which will be published as a follow up story) that says the high profile coach dominantly negotiated all his terms and conditions with Sumathipala administration, as their sole purpose was to hide their wrongdoings.
With this intention, though, Sumathipala completely breached the constitution of the SLC. As per the SLC constitution, the hiring of any coach follows a certain pattern : first cricket committee finalizes a coach and recommends his name to board. Then Management committee approves the name and forward it to ExCo Committee. Then, ExCo committee approves it and HR department issues appointment letter.
However, in Hathurusingha’s appointment, Sumathipala didn’t follow any of the procedure.
It was Sumathipala who brought Hathurusingha. It was Mathivanan who negotiated with Hathurasingha. Cricket Committee was not involved in his appointment. Sumathipala didn’t present and took approval Hathurasingha’s appointment from the management committee and ExCo Committee.
When Cricket Age inquired with ExCo and Management Committee members, they revealed some shocking facts. Like, no one knows anything about Hathurusingha’s contract details apart from Sumathipala, Mathivanan and SLC CEO Ashley De Silva. The most surprising thing is that Sumathipala didn’t involve even HR department in this and Ashley De Silva directly handed over Hathurasingha his appointment letter!
“Till date, none of the ExCo Member or Management Committee members knows the term and conditions of Hathurusingha’s contract. no one has the access of his contract. no one knows how much he is getting paid” a top SLC Official told Cricket Age.
When Cricket Age inquired about the reason of this hiding from Sumathipala, it learnt that the former SLC President told everyone that if Hathurusingha’s contract things would leak to media, he wouldn’t come to Sri Lanka!
It was just a lame excuse to hide another fraud! in two years at SLC, Sumathipala again and again took this sort of decisions, where he completely ignored everyone. In May 2017, he appointed Asanka Gurusinha without anyone’s approval at the SLC. In May this year, he obliged Ashley De Silva and SLC COO Jerome Jayarathne with increments and Hashan and Apsari Tillakaratne with appointments without following the proper procedure.
Now, these shocking revelations about Hathurusingha’s appointment again proves that Sumathipala ran SLC as a family business! It’s time for the Sports Minister Faizer Mustapha and his competent authority to set up an inquiry about this fraud!
