New 7-member national cricket committee appointed

• de Mel wants sub-committees to handle women’s, junior cricket

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Ashantha de Mel, who will head an expanded national cricket selection committee that would encompass women’s as well as junior cricket, said that sub-committees have to be formed for them to function successfully as a unit.

The new selection with seven members – approved by Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa – comprises Ashantha de Mel (chairman), Chaminda Mendis, Pramodya Wickramasinghe, Ranjith Madurasinghe, T. Nilmini Gunaratne, Hemantha Devapriya, and Uvaisul Karnain.

Due to the paucity of individuals to form three separate committees for the men’s national team, the women’s national team and the junior team, the National Selection Committee has instead named one selection committee to oversee all three areas.

“We will have to form some sub-committees and allow those committees to handle women’s and junior cricket and report back to us because we won’t have time to look at all that,” said de Mel. 

“We will have to sit down with Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and work out something to have two sub-committees separately for junior cricket and for women’s cricket, so that we can concentrate mainly on the Sri Lanka and ‘A’ teams,” he said. “Under Ranjith Madurasinghe, we can have a sub-committee for juniors, and Hemantha Devapriya and Nilmini Gunaratne can under them have another sub-committee to handle the women cricketers,” de Mel added.

Madurasinghe headed the junior selection committee when it was a separate unit earlier. This would leave de Mel, Mendis, Wickramasinghe and Karnain to handle the men’s national selections. de Mel and Mendis are the only members who have been reappointed to the national selection panel from the previous one.

Same squad of 22 to South Africa?

As the national selectors have not officially received their new letters of appointment, de Mel said that it would probably be on Monday (7 December) that they would sit down to officially pick the 22-man Test squad to South Africa.

“The 22 players we took to Pallekele (for a 10-day training camp). Most likely that is what we are looking at. I spoke to the coach (Mickey Arthur) and the captain (Dimuth Karunaratne) a few days ago, and what they said is that this 22 are already there and they don’t want to change it,” said de Mel. “The only thing is that Oshada Fernando had an injury to his ankle, so we have to wait for a report from the doctors whether he will be able to go. Other than that, the others are more or less the same. We will have to sit as a committee and put it across to them, but the captain and coach are happy to take the same 22 players,” he said. 

Of the 22 players, Captain Dimuth Karunaratne, Lahiru Thirimanne and Santhush Gunathilaka are the only ones not figuring in the ongoing My11Circle Lanka Premier League that is taking place in Hambantota. The Sri Lanka team is due to leave for South Africa on the morning of 18 December to play a series of two Tests.