Sri Lanka’s dashing left-handed batter Kusal Perera and his club Police SC have been accused of poaching players from other clubs by selling them dreams of getting top posts in the police department, Cricket Age reliably learns.
The club plays in division 1 and comes under police department.
According to sources, Perera and few top club officials are reportedly involved in poaching players by giving them police ranks hopes!
“They lured players last year also with these tactics. By poaching players like Chamara Silva, TN Sampath, Ashen Bandara and Bhanuka Rajapaksa, they made a super squad previous season” a source told Cricket Age.
However, as club officials couldn’t fulfill their promise of giving higher ranks, majority of players left the team, exept for Perera.
“Last year, there were 10 top players whom they poached by promising higher ranks in the Police department. Now it has started again as Kusal is luring young batting prodigies like Navindu Nirmal” the source added.
According to sources, SP Kamal Pushpakumara is another main culprit in these unethical practices.
“He was promoted to SSP last year with Rajapaksa’s influence. However, when all other SSP’s complained, he was demoted to SP again. He played and captained the police SC few years ago and made himself a laughing stock among other players and umpires because he has never hold a leather bat in a school even” the source added further.
Poaching other clubs players is anyway a “new normal” In Sri Lanka Cricket, initiated by former captain Mahela Jayawardene’s Sinhlease Sports Club (SSC). During his time at SSC as Cricket Committee Chairman, Coach Thilina Kandambi, Dhammika Prasad and their gang made “poaching players” a full time job!
Nowadays, Sri Lanka Players also prefers these sort of short cuts to get national recognition, instead of relying on their cricketing skills. Dinesh Chandimal is a classic example of this, who joined Army CC to prolong his dying career. As it was expected, after joining Army CC, Chandimal OVERNIGHT became a permanent member of Sri Lanka team in all 3 formats and even played a T20 World Cup!
