Cricket decline since 2015: Arjuna calls for Presidential Commission

Former Sri Lanka Cricket Team Captain and National Cricket Council Chairman Arjuna Ranatunga yesterday requested President Ranil Wickremesinghe to appoint a Presidential Commission to find out the reason for the decline of cricket in Sri Lanka since 2015 and how the cricket officials have spent money and how the people who got into positions became rich.

Ranatunga said that he is ready to make a written request to the President through Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe to appoint such a Commission and find out the reasons for the destruction of cricket in Sri Lanka.
  The former Cricket team Captain while speaking to the media of regarding the Asia Pacific Sports Ministers’  Conference on Anti-Doping which will be hosted by Sri Lanka added that the persons responsible for the decline of the sport can be identified through such a Commission. He said that it is also possible to legally punish those found guilty by such a commission.

“After forty years, did we ever think that we would have to play a qualifying tournament to get selected for the World Cup in our lifetime?”, Ranatunga queried.

He said that everyone can see that there is a problem in cricket in this country. Ranatunga added the government should go for a Presidential Commission which can punish those responsible for the deterioration of the cricket in the country legally.

“Leaving Aravinda aside, our current team is better than the 1996 team. But we need to find out why the game has fallen so low. It is because of our fault that we have fallen into this situation”, Ranatunga added.

He added that only one person who represented the National Cricket team is in Sri Lanka Cricket today. “He comes as the Chairman of Cricket select committee. Sri Lanka Cricket has appointed a committee which consists of a businessman, he said. Arjuna Ranatunga said that Cricket Committee comprised individuals who played for the country throughout the history.

He said that any sport in the country is subject to the Sports Ministry Act. “We must listen to international organizations. But the ICC cannot tell how cricket in the country is conducted.

He said that Sri Lankans who are levelling allegations that they are having political influence is a betrayal of the country.“There are journalists who help such attempts,” he said.

Such media organizations depend on those Sports Associations. They are the ones who write against us when we try to do something good”, he said.

Ranatunga added that such journalists have been paid.They have been paid. He added that the time has come for them to stop these manouvres.He added that he will reveal the names of those journalists in the future. However he said that there are good journalists in the country.