By: Samantha Hewabandula
Pressure through the legal system is sort by a team comprising of Muttiah Muralitharn, Sidath Wettimuny and a few other top Crackers and administrators to change the SLC’s existing constitution.
Former Sri Lanka Cricketer Mr Sidath Wettimuny says the system of Sri Lanka Cricket needs a change and that a segment of top Cricketers , administrators and a recognized team of personnel have teamed up to reengineer the system legally, with which they feel can be the path to take Sri Lanka Cricket to its rightful place. This is what thesundayreader.lk understood when we contacted Mr Wettimuny to seek his views on the way forward of Sri Lanka Cricket during the past weekend.
“With less competitive cricket being played resulting in no tangible development, We need to change the Constitution not to do injustice to small clubs but to see that we are in line with the rest of the Cricketing World, playing competitive cricket at the top level in our Country” . India has now adopted a similar system under Sourav Ganguly, the President of the Board of Control of Cricket in India” Said Wettimuny.
Many top Cricketers and administrators have aired their thoughts on the matter and have emphasized saying that development at the highest level can only be done if we focus on a limited no of fist class clubs as opposed to what is happening now where we have over 28 clubs that play at that level.
Airing his thoughts with the thesundayreader.lk, Mr Saman Hewavitharane the Honorary President of the the Kollupitiya Cricket/ Sports Club, a fully-fledged voting member affiliated to the Sri Lanka Cricket board said” we don’t agree with what Sidath and the rest are trying to do as doing that will not encourage nor uplift the standard of the Game of Cricket in the outskirts of Colombo and thereby will not create opportunity for rural players to shine and come into the international platform. They want to develop at Provisional and at District levels but by doing it, will only have more politically motivated people getting involved whilst the small clubs will get sidelined with no support”
During the time Sri Lanka gained test status there were only a few clubs that were playing in the main Sara Trophy which was classified as 1st class in Sri Lanka. It was SSC, NCC, CCC, Nomads SC, Bloomfield, BRC, Tamil Union, Galle CC and Air force SC are some of the main clubs that played in the top tire with which we were able to gain test status in 1982 and thereafter win the World Cup in 1996.
Situation being so it will be a matter of time, when we will be able to see which path the Sri Lanka Cricket Board will take after analyzing the pros and cons of both systems and take the most fitting for development of Cricket in Sri Lanka.
