SHAMMI ELECTED NEW SLC PRESIDENT
Shammi Silva was voted in as President of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) resoundingly beating Jayantha Dharmadasa by 27 votes, at the SLC polls held at the Sports Ministry auditorium yesterday. It was a unexpected ending to an election cycle that had already seen multiple delays and disqualifications and had forced the Thilanga Sumathipala backed group to fall back to their contingency plan – of putting Silva forward to contest for presidency, in the event their original nominee Mohan de Silva was rejected.
That contingency was put into action only on the day before the elections after de Silva had recorded a settlement in the Court of Appeal that he be allowed to contest for the post of Secretary, which led to a fortuitous victory for the newly elected President.
“This is something that I got by accident,” Silva said almost three hours after news of his ascension to the top most post at SLC was greeted by the sounds of crackers lit by his supporters. “I wasn’t even contesting this position till yesterday (Wednesday).”
Silva’s victory, likely down to the support he received from Sumathipala who is seen as the biggest force in the Sri Lankan cricket fraternity, was secured when he accounted for 83 of a possible 142 votes, which perhaps emboldened the voter base to support his group for all the main positions. The outlier was Kangadaran Mathivanan, contesting in a group of candidates led by Dharmadasa, who was elected as Vice President with 80 votes – two less than Raveen Wickramaratne, another Sumathipala-backed candidate who was previously disqualified.
Wickramaratne, like de Silva, had been slated to contest a different position, but the committee to advise the minister regarding election appeals had barred the duo on the grounds that their nominations had violated regulations of the Sports Law.
However, it later emerged that the appeals lodged against them had mentioned objections to only specific positions, with the Attorney General’s stating in the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, that it had no objection to de Silva contesting the Secretary’s post and Wickramaratne contesting for either Vice President or Assistant Secretary.
De Silva was elected by a margin of 53, having secured 96 votes, beating out former secretary Nishantha Ranatunga who managed just 43 votes.
For the Ranatunga brothers, election to SLC remains elusive.
Having lost in 2016 to a Sumathipala-led group, they would have left the Sports Ministry with a sense of dejavu, defeated once again yesterday. Arjuna lost out on a Vice President’s post, and Nishantha was rejected as Secretary.
The brothers said it was the decision by the membership, to vote for those with allegations of corruption, that had led to their defeat.
“The public needs to think about if the people who vote [the SLC membership] have the best interest of cricket at heart. The public needs to look into these people going forward, and not us. We did what we could, by coming forward to contest. The only way we could fix this is by changing the constitution to stop people like this contesting,” Arjuna, who is the Minister of Transport and Aviation, said.
Nishantha, who has previously served as a secretary, echoed the Minister’s words, saying they will do whatever they can to uplift the game even if they are not in office.
“We will do whatever we can even from the outside, to help improve the standards of cricket and we will support whatever is good. But we won’t shy away from opposing whatever is not good,” he said.
“The question is not about the voters being right or wrong [in their decision] but it is more about the path that they have decided to take Sri Lanka cricket on, that has brought his outcome. We were in a good position in 2015 and now we have declined to the extent that we are playing qualification tournaments and if the stakeholders believe that is the best thing then we are disappointed, but we ask the public to be aware of these things,” Nishantha claimed, adding, “there are certain things they do to win the votes of some corrupted stakeholders which we don’t do.”
Sports Minister Harin Fernando was hopeful that he would receive the support of the new committee to carry out amendments to the SLC constitution, which he hopes do through a parliamentary act.
“I believe that there are many sports that need changes in the constitution, not just cricket. To that effect, I had a discussion with Mahela (Jayawardena) and Kumar (Sangakkara) on Wednesday and what they suggested will help remove politics from sports and I will present this [new SLC constitution] to cabinet in the next two weeks, and present it to parliament in May. It will allow anyone to contest for the SLC elections,” the Minister said.
Among the proposals by the two former cricketers, the Minister said, was “breaking the country into six zones and reducing the number of premier clubs to six.”
The current structure is quite different to what we want to implement and I am sure there won’t be a smooth ride but the utmost place we go to is parliament and if parliament approves it I don’t see how there can be a problem,” the Minister also said.
While expressing a mutual desire to work closely with the Minister, the newly elected committee appeared to also express reservations towards some of these changes.
“I don’t know how effective changing the club structure is going to be. We have a tried and tested club structure that has produced so many international players. So how can you develop a provincial system without developing the provinces (sic). Even if we cluster clubs into provinces, players must have a belonging to play for that province. Players hear an integral part of the club. They have a sense of belonging,” de Silva, the new Secretary, said.