• Former Minister speaks in the wake of the SLC AGM 

Ex-Minister of Sports Roshan Ranasinghe says the onus is on President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, if he is genuine of ridding Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) of its perception of being controlled by undesirable officials, to act on his firm pre-election rhetoric to that effect.

Speaking to The Daily Morning Sports, he said the current President should act on his strong pledge to the public to clean up the image of the SLC.

“The President had publicly spoken of his desire, to remove all officials with tainted images from the SLC, before the previous Presidential and General Elections,” the former minister said.

He was airing his view, in the aftermath of Shammi Silva being returned to serve a fourth successive term, at the 64th SLC Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on Monday (31 March).

“Mind you, this Government was voted into office, on an anti-corruption ticket and they have every responsibility to honour the promises given in this regard to the masses, at those elections. So it’s up to the people to determine whether the NPP Government has shown any inkling to act on those assurances, thus far or not.”

He stressed that as there is an ongoing Court-imposed restraint on him for views expressed into activities of the SLC administration, he had opted instead to focus on the stance taken by the President.

This was in the run up to the national elections last year and on Dissanayake’s public vow to cleanse the game’s local governing body. 

Ranasinghe who contested the last General Election under the Sarwajana Balaya ticket, but failed to enter the Parliament, stated that the SLC is a public property.

He said if there are any allegations to the effect of its misuse, then those have to be transparently probed by the Government of the day.

He said the report compiled by the Auditor General’s Department, into alleged acts of irregularities committed during the 2020 ICC Men’s T20I World Cup in Australia, by the current SLC administration, had been personally handed over by him to the Attorney General’s Department, for follow-up action on three separate occasions since August 2022.

He was however nonplussed as to what had transpired since then pertaining to that report and could not be drawn on any positive developments taking place either, as of now or in the foreseeable future.

He added that one of his regulations to limit the tenure of officials serving on all sports bodies to two years, had been ‘controversially overturned’ by his successor Harin Fernando and opined that if it had not been changed, the SLC would have had a new set off office bearers by now. 

Ranasinghe was removed from the Cabinet by former President Ranil Wickremsinghe, over his single-handed efforts to clean up the SLC setup in 2023.

He had been at loggerheads with the Shammi Silva-led SLC, ever since the national team’s infamous exit from the ICC Men’s 50-over World Cup in India, two years ago.

In the wake of the team’s humiliating exit, Ranasinghe formed a seven-member Interim Committee helmed by Arjuna Ranatunga, but the ICC suspended Sri Lanka soon after, citing political interference.

The SLC under Shammi Silva then managed to obtain a Court order suspending the Interim Committee, while the former also filed a defamation lawsuit against the ex-lawmaker, for making ‘damaging derogatory statements’ deepening the administrative crisis at Maitland Place.