Major tussle tomorrow for Sri Lanka Cricket’s power title

By Hishan Welmilla

The election of office bearers for Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) will take place tomorrow with top contenders battling it out to hold one of the most powerful positions in the sport.  

Former President of SLC Thilanga Sumathipala, former Secretary of SLC Nishantha Ranatunga, former chairman of Interim Committee of SLC Jayantha Dharmadasa and former Executive Committee remember of SLC Sumith perera are the four main contenders of the battle.  

Although it has become a four corner battle, it quite interesting to note that only two parties have come to the limelight with proper plans for the future of cricket

Sri Lanka Cricket has been under pressure from the International Cricket Council to hold elections, after issuing a directive calling for all national boards to have held independent elections free from political interference.

Since 2004 and up to 2012 Sri Lanka Cricket has been run by nine interim committees, all of which have been government appointed. In 2012, Upali Dharmadasa was elected unopposed as president of Sri Lanka Cricket. He was the head of the cricket Interim Committee until then. At the same time Nishantha Ranatunga was also voted in uncontested as secretary and Nuski Mohamed as Treasurer.

In 2013, Thilanga Sumathipala was not given an opportunity to contest in the election after the country’s three top sports clubs, Baduruliya, Kegalle and Sebastian Night, filed objections against the nomination Thilanga Sumathipala had handed in.

A three-member committee composed of Anura Jayawickrama, Attorney at Law Panduka Keerthinanda and a former official of the Auditor General’s department B M K Mohottala, was appointed by then Sports Minister Mahindanda Aluthgamage to probe the charges filed against Thilanga Sumathipala. 

According to the three-member committee report, according to the Sports Act Thilanga Sumathipala has no legal provisions to contest for the SLC elections, hence his nomination was rejected.

Then Jayantha Dhramadasa along with Nishantha Ranatunga were appointed to the Interim Committee of SLC. Both had different ideas when working together and the result of this split was both Ranatunga and Dharmadasa seeking the post of president at the 2014 SLC AGM. However, just prior to the elections former Minister of Sports Navin Dissanayake decided to form an Interim Committee with Sidath Wettimuny as its head

Before this election SLC activities were under an Interim committee lead by former Sri Lankan cricketer Sidath Wettamuny 

Sri Lanka Cricket has been facing a series of crises, with SLC facing millions of dollars of debt, allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement 

Out of four candidates two candidates have fielded teams for the respective positions at the elections and few of those nominees were rejected by the Director General of Sports K. D. S. Ruwanchandra.  

The Objection filed against the nominations of Nishantha Ranatunga, Thilanga Sumathipala, Jayantha Dharmadasa and Sumith Perera for the post of president of Sri Lanka Cricket was overruled by a committee headed by Director General of Sports paving the way for them to contest the elections.

However the nominations of K. Mathivanan (from Thilanga’s camp) and Asanga Seneviratne (Nishantha’s camp) for the post of Vice Presidents were rejected on the grounds that they had not served in the executive committee for a minimum period of two years. On the same grounds Eastman Narangoda’s (Nishantha’s Camp) nominations for the post of treasurer was also rejected.

Both Thilanga Sumathipala and Nishantha Ranatunga have publicised their plans to take Sri Lanka Cricket forward if they elected to the office of Sri Lanka Cricket.

Thilanga said that they had categorized six main pillars which they hope to transform Sri Lanka Cricket, International Cricket, Domestic Cricket, Development, Administration, Finance, and

Communication. This four-year plan is expected to be completed by 2020.

Nishantha also believes in developing school cricket, provincial cricket and club cricket. During his previous tenure, Nishantha strongly objected to how SLC funds were distributed. 

There are 86 stakeholders voting to elect 147 cricket administrators.