Four-cornered fight for Sri Lanka Cricket Presidency

Monday, 7 December 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

ESPNCricinfo: Arjuna Ranatunga, Sri Lanka’s World Cup-winning captain, will contest for a vice-president’s position in the upcoming Sri Lanka Cricket elections on 3 January. He will stand as part of a faction led by his brother and former board secretary Nishantha Ranatunga, who is running for the position of president.

Three-time SLC president Thilanga Sumathipala has entered his own faction in the election, and shapes as the Ranatungas’ major rival. Jayantha Dharmadasa - another former president - has overcome professional differences with Sumathipala to contest for one of the two vice-president’s positions as part of Sumathipala’s faction.

The election will take place under the supervision of the country’s Ministry of Sport. Nominations were closed on Friday.

SLC has been in the care of an interim committee since April, when then-sports minister Navin Dissanayake elected the board. The appointment of a nine-man team under former Test opener Sidath Wettimuny was an effort to clean up suspected wrongdoing at SLC.

This election, however, appears set to return some of those ousted men into the administration. In addition to Nishantha and Dharmadasa, other candidates such as Hirantha Perera and Mohan de Silva have held SLC office in the past two years.

Though the ICC has imposed significant sanctions on the interim committee this year for being appointed through government interference, full-blown politicians are now standing for election. Arjuna is the country’s Ports and Shipping minister and Sumathipala is the deputy speaker of Parliament. If Sumathipala is elected to the post of SLC president, he will also ostensibly serve as Sri Lanka’s director on the ICC board.

In 2011, the ICC had given boards two years to be rid of political interference, in consonance with the Woolf Report’s recommendations, but has since said it would review that stance.

Director General of Sports KDS Ruwanchandra, who accepted the nominations, said he had received 14 objections against contesting candidates. “I will scrutinise all the objections received and call the candidates against whom objections have been raised on December 10 and let them know the outcome,” he said.

Both Nishantha and Sumathipala have chequered histories as SLC officials. A board headed by Sumathipala was forced to stand down in the wake of an investigation into financial irregularities in 2001. Nishantha also faced criticism in 2012 for awarding SLC’s local broadcast rights to CSN - a company he had close ties to at the time.

The nominations

President (1 post)

Sumith Perera, Thilanga Sumathipala, Jayantha Dharmadasa, Nishantha Ranatunga

Vice-presidents (2 posts)

Jayantha Dharmadasa, K Mathivanan, Shammi Silva, Asanga Seneviratne, Arjuna Ranatunga

Secretary (1 post)

Mohan de Silva, Hirantha Perera

Assistant secretary (1 post)

Ravin Wickremaratne, Nilantha Ratnayake

Treasurer (1 post)

Shammi Silva, Easman Narangoda

Assistant treasurer (1 post)

Lalith Rambukwella, Aruna de Silva, Sujeewa Lokuhewa, Nihal Lewke