Hesha Withanage, member of parliament from Ratnapura district and famous for his agenda driven mud slinging campaign against Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), has now gone too far by accusing ‘a genuine‘ Sports Minister Sunil Kumara Gamage.
Hesha is notorious for making baseless accusations against SLC. To fulfill others agendas, and to give boost to his own political career, he has made sensational claims against Maitland Place quite a few time in recent past, but with little success, and substance too!
In August 2023, based on a manipulated draft report by the Auditor General’s Department, Withanage had made false allegations against SLC officials accusing them of malpractices during the 2022 Men’s T20 cricket World Cup.
In response, in a media statement, SLC revealed that the Colombo District Court has issued an injunction order prohibiting Withanage from making comments against the SLC and its officials based on the draft report by the Auditor General’s Department.
Then, In May 2024, Withanage during a media briefing, baselessly accused the SLC President, the Tournament Director of the Lanka Premier League (LPL), and other board officials of involvement in match- fixing and corrupt conduct related to the league.
In response, SLC, again In a media statement, vehemently refuted the allegations while stating that the board has engaged the services of the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ICC-ACU) to oversee all anti-corruption measures for the LPL.
Now again, while uttering usual rubbish against SLC, Hesha has also targeted Sports Minister Gamage!
“It seems that the new Sports Minister (Gamage) is also now in SLC’s pocket and that’s why he is silent” he said in parliament, while referring government’s Clean Sri Lanka project.
While making the said statement, Hesha undermined and Ignored Gamage’s political credentials big time! Gamage, of Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s NPP, is a qualified chartered accountant. More significantly, unlike some previous Sports Ministers, he is regarded as a ‘clean and honest’ politician, with no prior expierence in politics! Before becoming Sports Minister, he was at Water Board, but resigned!
Interestingly, Sri Lanka is struggling with rice and other daily essentials big time at present. However, even after being an elected MP, Hesha didn’t bother to raise these issues in parliament. Instead, for momentary limelight and cheap publicity, he opted to focus on SLC and Sports Minister.
“He (Hesha) doesn’t know a word about Cricket. But Sri Lanka has many such politicians who have used cricket as a tool to get publicity. Hesha is doing exactly this, while dancing on someone else’s tune” a Sri Lanka Cricket expert told Cricket Age.
