By Madushka Balasuriya

Sri Lanka Cricket believes that Chandika Hathurusingha and Ashantha De Mel will have no issues working together in the Sri Lankan dressing room, after the pair are said to have “thrashed things out” prior to the latter’s appointment as Team Manager and Tour Selector for the World Cup later this month.

Chandika Hathurusingha

Ashantha De Mel

“Before the appointment, we got the both of them together to talk things through,” SLC Secretary Mohan De Silva told Daily FT over the phone. “They eventually thrashed things out, and now we’re very confident that they’ll work quite well together.” 

De Mel’s appointment, which was rubber-stamped by Sri Lanka Cricket at an Executive Committee meeting on 30 April, had been mooted for some time, but speculation had been rife over whether he and Hathurusingha would be able to get along over the course of the six-week tournament.

It was, after all, a spat with the new selection committee that culminated in Hathurusingha being removed from the role of selector-on-tour in February. And since then, Hathurusingha’s job security has only become more tenuous. 

In March, he was given “a break” during Sri Lanka’s T20I series against South Africa, while SLC CEO Ashley De Silva had flown over personally to have crisis talks with him, following rumours of him having fallen out with certain players and staff. During this period, there were also reports of SLC seeking legal advice over possible options with regard to prematurely terminating his hefty contract.

However, following clear-the-air talks between Hathurusingha and the board, he is understood to have agreed to rein in his autocratic methods, much of which De Silva noted had manifested during the nine-month period in which SLC was in the midst of a power vacuum, and being run by a Sports Ministry-appointed Competent Authority.

“We were in two minds whether to discontinue him or not. We needed to know if he was amenable to our way of thinking, and whether he would change his attitude. Because to be quite honest, he had become a total dictator after we left, and that’s also one of the reasons that the selectors were gunning for him,” noted De Silva.

“But he has now promised to toe the line with the administrators and the selectors, because to be honest, his thinking in terms of the national team has been good, although the results haven’t followed unfortunately.

“Also, while Hathurusingha must take his share of the blame, the selectors and the Sports Minister during those nine months should be held responsible too. They antagonised Hathurusingha by talking about his [salary] package among other things, while also making some questionable selection choices.”

Other decisions taken by the ExCo