Island Cricket

Friday, December 7, 2007

Into the jaws of death rides brave Sri Lanka Cricket…

The Island online is a subscription based newspaper run by the Upali group. I'm only posting excerpts of Rex Clementine's article which is truly shocking and well worth the read.

"There were several incidents during the Test match that came into our attention and as a responsible media organization, it’s our duty to point out these deficiencies as Sri Lanka Cricket is slowly becoming a refuge for rogues and scoundrels."

"S
everal media organizations brought the attention of the public to the roof at the temporary stand that came off injuring four spectators."

"
While doubts were cast on the officials who had gone from Colombo, those from Kandy were no different. Orders for food were given at very high prices, but the food that was supplied was of poor quality. There are even allegations that the officials pocketed money even from the meals provided to prison inmates, who were employed at the ground for various purposes. In midst of that came some stunning revelations. The media was informed of this particular official of the Kandy District Cricket Association, who had allegedly asked a supplier for a bribe if the food order was to be given to him. The supplier said no and he didn't get the deal.

This is how Sri Lanka Cricket worked and works at the moment. One main grouse that Jayantha Dharmadasa brought up when he took over the administration of the sport was that there was corruption in the sport. But during the last two years he has been in charge, corruption has become rampant and Dharmadasa has gladly promoted it to enhance his vote base." - he added.

"There were balls sold at the ground bearing the forged signature of Muttiah Muralitharan at the price of 10-20 Sterling Pounds. Later it was revealed that these were balls bearing Sri Lanka Cricket’s logo and that these balls had been distributed to District Cricket Associations. The person who was selling the forged balls were arrested, but he was let off? Now we are told different stories by the officials who were in charge of security. One is that the person who was selling these balls escaped. The other is that he was let off after one of the Kandy officials pleaded with the security officials saying that this was a minor offence. Minor offence? Forging once signature is a grave offence. Secondly we question the competence of security officials if they were so careless to let this individual vanish.

Sri Lanka Cricket should hold an inquiry into the incident to safeguard its credibility that’s fast eroding at levels of its activities."

-writes Rex for The Island (subscription)

1 Comments:

Six & Out said...

SLC what can u say about them..man we really need some quality ppl at the top..we can be such a good team if we had the right ppl in place..hmm

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