Unopposed for nearly five years cricket officials used to an opulent and well covered lifestyle have revealed they have outgrown the country where everything is fair game:
Dambulla somewhere in the year 2000, the casually calm figure of Shammi Silva walked up to a group of journalists at a social gathering under the stars after an inspection of what was to be commissioned as Sri Lanka’s newest international cricket venue.
The venue became a contentious issue that came under heavy scrutiny for the way it was planned with an estimated Rs. 400 million set aside for its construction which was a colossal amount at the time under the tenure of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) president Thilanga Sumathipala.
But no one among the media at the time realized Silva was to someday, 20 years down the line, become one of the world’s most powerfully entrenched sports bosses on the international scene.
By way of control and authority, he was not second to anyone in the saddle and with him came the rise of the caretaker body of cricket in the country. What separated Silva from most was that he was a silent dictator. “To him almost everything and anything was fair game. Cross his path and you had it,” said a close aide of Silva who wished to remain anonymous.
Silva did not build the Empire that is Sri Lanka Cricket at the drop of a hat as some of his critics saw his rise from a virtual less important unknown mortal to a super magnate whose organization thrived on a subject that even lost on the field of play. Inch by inch as the years went by Silva realized there were no rivals to challenge him with the politically swashbuckling Sumathipala out of the way giving him the reins four years ago due to a legal hitch that ruled him out of an election of office bearers to Sri Lanka Cricket.
Gradually with none to take him on even during election time, Silva was a one horse race and no one stood in his way. He became so obsessed with power that anyone who opposed him had to move on. Those who could not oppose him joined him and there was none to take him head-on locally or internationally. The players brought in the money and Silva called the shots.
As he grew in stature and business maturity, Silva became averse to criticism like most hardcore bosses and knew how to deal with critics he could not bend or twist to suit his whims and fancies as SLC became one of the most coveted institutions for many.
Once in it, and gaining entry wasn’t easy, the best things in life were there for its office bearers who were entitled to the latest model cars, the best of travel and hotel accommodation along with the best of food and drink and the chance to hobnob with royalty.
Although Silva appeared sparingly at Press conferences, he despised the occasion and many a time lost his composure in answering questions, the result of a man with a dictatorial stand. He seemed to get almost everything right, from business dealings by forming alliances with the rich and influential to the political elite.
The glittering importance of social functions and launches of the Sri Lanka team made him the central figure although he lacked the art of public speech that sometimes got him into conflict with reasoning like in the case of his now cranky remark of cricket being his private fiefdom.
Some of his unguarded public utterances, that no one in his inner circle cared to correct, meant nothing to him. He also loved to cultivate media men who were less or not critical of him and some of them would be around him at social functions or at the culmination of a Press conference just for a friendly chat. With so much at his clout he also had a way of dealing with media people he saw as “bad journalists” who held their ground and chose not to fall for anything.
Eventually SLC snowballed into a high market value as cricket became one of the most marketable commodities in the country and beyond its borders. With each tour and series SLC wasted no time in grasping the opportunity and what was once an entity on a shoestring budget during the first two World Cups in 1975 and ’79 became the most thriving industry in the country.
Then known as the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka, it had just Rs.300,000 in its bank account in 1996 when the team won the World Cup that year, to its untold riches in 2023.
“People who were once running Sri Lanka Cricket and ruined it, now realize the changes in it and are clamoring to renter”, Silva told reporters covering his reelection in June this year
Sometimes rules, etiquette and protocol did not matter and some at SLC developed a kind of immunity and invincibility come hell or high water. Silva had very little or no opposition from within by the time he was re-elected and his subordinates had to address him as the President in public especially in front of the Press.
Early this year SLC boasted that it made as much as Rs.23 billion in profits that made it a place that was well worth patronizing and the earnings of players also increased and nobody inside complained until eventually the cracks began to show with a breakdown in player discipline and scandals that rocked the team’s presence at the T20 World Cup in Australia last October-November.
Obsessed with power, might and influence, Sri Lanka Cricket outgrew the game spending lavishly that led to calls for a clean-up of corruption at SLC creating a ticking time-bomb in the aftermath of a government investigation into financial misdeeds.
Eventually the bomb exploded with the Sri Lanka team crashing to its worst performance in World Cup history early this month and out from the cupboards came the skeletons and ghosts to tell their tales as the people whose only collective passion in the country is cricket took to the streets as if to chase out a political dictator.
Religion, race, the economy, politics and education divided the country. Cricket unified and Parliament exploded more than it did in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings with the Opposition and the majority in the government hand in hand demanding change at SLC and an ouster of corrupt officials.
Cricket was forced into a legal wrangle in court and none could have summed up the state of cricket outside of Parliament in a more drastic and pleading way than former captain Arjuna Ranatunga.
“Saving cricket is now in the hands of court and this is the last chance to save cricket. If we go on like this something worse can happen”, said Ranatunga.
Critics wonder what is it that can get any worse for cricket in the country that is still in need of an on-field revolution since Ranatunga lifted the World Cup in 1996 and with it came the off-field evils.
