In a special press conference held on the 14th of February 2019 at Ministry of Sports, Sports Minister Harin Fernando explained his plans on Sri Lanka Cricket going forward.
He stated explicitly that he doesn’t possess any personal or political agenda for SLC and never wanted to get in the middle of SLC’s business. The following topics were discussed at the briefing.
- SLC Elections
- SLC constitution
- Anti-corruption report
- On SL Captain’s meeting
- World Cup squad
- Payment for Players and coaches
Unsurprisingly, the main talking point was the upcoming SLC elections which is scheduled to be held on 21st of February.
“We take continuous legal counsel from Attorney General’s Department. Despite the legal action taken against the Appeal Committee decision to reject several nominations, we are hopeful that we won’t be held up by a stay order. If by any chance we are to face a delay, we will have to discuss it with the ICC. Hopefully, the ICC would not go hard at us considering that we would then be facing a legal constraint”- Minister said.
After their rejection of nominations for SLC elections by the Appeals Advisory Committee, Presidency candidate Mohan De Silva and Secretory candidate Ravin Wickramaratne have expressed their displeasure on the decision and announced that they are looking at filing a lawsuit before the elections.
“We don’t have any issue with them contesting but we have taken the decision based on the attorney general’s advice. Hence, I doubt they will be able to challenge the disqualification by the Election Appeals Committee or obtain a stay order against the SLC election during hearings relating to this decision.”- Fernando added.
Minister stated that if the elections were to be held up again by a stay order, under Section 32 of Sports Law, he is entitled to go for an interim committee.
He revealed that they were working on a plan to change the SLC constitution through the parliamentary act.
“A plan has been prepared to change the SLC constitution. This was done after consulting players like Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Mutthiah Muralitharan and Sidath Wettimuny. I will be forwarding it to the Cabinet for approval next week, and then to Parliament,”
“After it is passed in Parliament, we can start working towards implementing the changes. I have sought advice in this matter from many quarters, disregarding party politics and divisions, and have even consulted the former Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara,”- Minister added.
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Regarding the performance of the current bunch of players, Fernando said, “I don’t think we have a problem with our cricketers’ talents. We only have some loss of confidence and other such matters which we can overcome. I think our team is now performing better,” He went on to say that there will be another round of meetings after a fruitful discussion between former and current captains, namely Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Lasith Malinga and Thisara Perera. Further he insisted that there are no current players involved in the anti-corruption report submitted by the ICC.
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The Minister emphasized that there are 25 players who have been shortlisted for the upcoming ICC World Cup which will commence on 30th May in England and he is yet to receive that list from selection committee.
Though there has been a lot of talk on social media on the wages of cricket players, the Minister went on to say that the players should be paid handsomely as they are professional sportsmen of this country and are one of the least paid set of cricketers compared with other major cricketing nations.
“Now that cricket has become a professional sport in Sri Lanka, these cricketers cannot do a job. They will have to solely depend on their payments to carry out their livelihood. They can play cricket only for a specific period of time. They cannot go for a job after quitting cricket either. So considering all these facts, we must accept the fact that these cricketers must be paid accordingly”
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Minister Fernando touched on the issues regarding the payment of coaches as well, implying that the current national coach was not given proper space to show performances and there should be an incentive-based payment criterion for the national coaches as well. – “There is thing called return on investment. If we are investing, we need results. This is not to personally target anyone. Our present national coach had faced many issues. He was not allowed to execute his plans. Some people have disrupted his work. So this is not a personal vendetta,” he added.
