In a shocking turn of events, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has charged Sri Lanka’s legendary Sanath Jayasuriya with two counts of breaching the ICC Anti-Corruption Code.
The surprising thing is that charges do not relate to his playing days, but to his second stint as Sri Lanka’s chairman of selectors, which ended in August 2017, not long after the Sri Lankans had surprisingly lost a one-day series at home to Zimbabwe.
However, the charges of ICC against Jayasuriya itself raises many questions.
At the time Jayasuriya served Sri Lanka as chief selector, many suspicious things happened. Thilanga Sumathipala was the president of Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) at that time.
Few months before the resignation of Jayasuriya led selection committee , there was another big match fixing scandal – during a domestic match between Kalutara and Panadura. Few closest associates of Sumathipala were involved in that scandal. However, Sumathipala never took any stern action against culprits, as they were vital in his SLC campaign! So, SLC swept that inquiry under the carpet.
Then, there was pitch fixing scandal in Galle. Two former players were caught in the Al Jazeera documentary, by claiming that they can fix the matches at the venue. Later, it emerged that those were mysteriously placed in the Galle curating setup by top SLC officials.
Then last month, there was a big conspiracy to transfer 11.1 million rupees of SLC to announce offshore account by three board employees.
All these incidents, including Jayasuriya saga, indicates that there is someone ‘Big’ behind the scenes, who was operating the fixing network!
The ICC must investigate who is this ‘Big Fish’? Who is the mastermind behind all these? Who placed all the wrong people’s at the SLC during last two years?
If ICC can solve all these questions, only then the cricket governing body will be able to clean Sri Lanka cricket!
