While cricket officials continue to have a field day and the team’s problems keep mounting at the World Cup, another Ministerial media side show takes place:
Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe lost yet another stand-off against seemingly invincible officials of Sri Lanka Cricket who were quick on the draw to hit him into a corner and declared obsolete as the repentant batsman Dhanushka Gunathilaka who pleaded for a comeback was pardoned by his employer.
Minister Ranasinghe found himself cut down amid fears that his disputed stint has been confined to mere hollow actions making him arguably one of the biggest off-target sports ministers thrust into the job.
What was worst to befall him was that he is still weighing the pros and cons two months after he went down on his knees in Parliament begging with the powers that be to clean up a cricket administration that the whole country sees from the outside as murky on the inside
“I don’t know the kind of laws that are in place for them (cricket officials) to do it their way. They never consulted me (in lifting the ban on Gunathilaka). They live in a different world with different laws. They are not bound by Sri Lankan laws,” Minister Ranasinghe told reporters.
When a reporter told him he has fought a losing battle against cricket officials, Minister Ranasinghe produced a superficial answer side stepping the question and nudging the media over the current humiliation of the Sri Lanka team at the World Cup.
“The end is visible and you can see the team losing three matches (at the World Cup)”, he retorted.
Apparently fearing public accusations that it has more skeletons in its cupboards than Gunathilaka has, Sri Lanka Cricket said in a media statement the ban on the south paw batsman was lifted following a recommendation made by its own committee that probed the player’s conduct after he was acquitted by a court in Australia over charges of raping a woman.
But the cornered Minister Ranasinghe said the ban on Gunathilaka when lifted amounts to a violation of a previous recommendation made by his first Probe Committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Kusala Sarojini Weerawardena following Sri Lanka’s T20 World Cup debacle in Australia, the scandalous off-field behaviour of players and alleged financial misdeeds committed by cricket officials on tour.
“The ban can be lifted only with the approval of the (Sports) Ministry, the National Sports Council and the Attorney General,” he said.
Critics of the administration of cricket fear the bandwagon will continue while the failure of the team at the World Cup means nothing to a well entrenched establishment with a Minister still struggling to prove his presence.
