Lobby

Thilanga, Lokuge expose Arjuna's true game

*Match fixing allegations on two former cricketers

*Selling the good name of cricket

by the Sunday Observer Lobby Correspondent

Democratic People’s Alliance parliamentarian Arjuna Ranatunga, after his controversial statements in Parliament last week, ate humble pie when Minister Gamini Lokuge and MP Thilanga Sumathipala replied with two stunning speeches which exposed the true nature of former Sri Lanka cricket captain and his conduct when playing for the Sri Lanka National team.

Minister Lokuge, who earlier held the portfolio of Minister of Sports and Public Entertainment, said names of two former Sri Lanka cricketers were mentioned in an international report on match fixing.

Former Sri Lanka Cricket President turned parliamentarian Thilanga Sumathipala told Parliament that the two players had obtained USD 15,000 to fix matches. He said Sri Lanka’s World Cup winning captain and vice captain had finished competing in the World Cup by the time the ICC report on match fixing was issued.

Sumathipala said he was heading the SLC during that time. He said when former South African captain Hansie Cronje was caught for match fixing, there was a worldwide dialogue against match fixing. He added that Interpol and India’s CBI began an international investigation.

Sumathipala recalled how some of the leading cricketers in the world were punished for match fixing. “Cronje admitted his fault and was banned.

He then submitted a report on players who were involved. That report included the name of Indian crickter, Mohammed Azharuddin and he too pleaded guilty. England’s Alec Stewart was also found guilty and was punished by the ECB. Pakiatan’s Saleem Malik was banned for life. Names of two Lankan cricketers too were mentioned in that report,” he said.

He said that the then SLC Ex-co appointed a committee to investigate and it was found that the two players solicited a bribe of USD 15,000 to fix matches.

Ranatunga then intervened and asked Sumathipala whether he was mentioning the names of cricketers and making a responsible statement. “Yes, I am. Later we appointed a committee to investigate. They too confirmed the two cricketers accepting USD 15,000 to fix matches,” Sumathipala said. When MP Ranatunga continued to object to MP Sumathipala’s statement, Minister Lokuge said that Ranatunga could request for a full debate if what he stated was wrong.

“We are prepared to face such debate,” Minister Lokuge said.

We publish the speech made by MP Thilanga Sumathipala and an interview with Minister Gamini Lokuge and excerpts from MP Sanath Jayasuriya’s speech in Parliament for the cricket loving public to know the true nature of the cricketer who had sold the country’s reputation for a few thousand dollars and now pretends to be a Saint.

Politics never took cricket away from winning path - Lokuge

Cricket, definitely is the hot topic now. It is not just the enjoyment the game brings that is much talked about. Serious political debates questioning whether cricket has been politicised heated up the Parliament for the past few days making headlines in the local news arena. Member of Parliament Arjuna Ranatunga threw an allegation against the Government in Parliament stating that making cricketers enter politics has degraded the discipline of the sport.

Labour and Labour Relations Minister Gamini Lokuge, who was also the former Minister of Sports, responded to the Cricket debate bringing up the match fixing accusations. The Minister also stated that it is such actions that bring defeat disrepute to the game. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has always done his best to elevate the level of sports.

According to the Minister every decision taken during his tenure was taken collectively with the views of respective officials of the ministry as well as the Sri Lanka Cricket Board. Minister Lokuge said that politics never took cricket away from the winning path, according to his experience in his tenure.

“Throughout the history of cricket, teams have faced ups and downs. This happens irrespective of politics,” Minister Lokuge said.

“The Sri Lankan team in 1996 won the World Cup and later was not so successful. Problems within the team could bring a downturn even to a world class team,” the Minister said. In fact it was political interferences that brought certain key members back into the team when they were not selected on certain criteria.

Recently in one incident Marvan Atapattu was not selected to play in the series. Knowing that he will be a valuable team member I as the Minister suggested and took necessary action to include him into the team,” The Minister said.

When the ‘Sunday Observer’ questioned him on certain allegations raised by opposition parties on incidents of misconduct the Minister assured that during his time all decisions were taken with great transparency. “National level decisions on sports were clearly taken through National Select Committees and always followed the required international criteria when selecting sports personnel for international level games,” he added. “In fact it was the Governing political party who took all the necessary measures to facilitate these sportsmen and women to win,” he added.

- DY

What happened to the proposed hostel for cricketers? - Thilanga Sumathipala MP

Speech made by MP Thilanga Sumathipala in Parliament on Wednesday

I am happy to follow Minister Gamini Lokuge, our former Minister of Sports. Our new Minister of Sports assumed duties only an year ago and I could say he performed well compared to his predecessors.

He took the initiative to introduce a national sports policy to the country. You were given the opportunity to express your views on forty important matters of the draft sports policy Bill. The people and the interested parties had reciprocated in expressing these views and now it is a complete document. It has planned sports grounds to the nine provinces, 25 to districts and 314 for divisional committees.

We too had received the copies of this document at the consultative committee meeting. The Minister said that he had identified 15-17 main sports and those following too. We believe that a national sports plan is under way by the Sports Minister.

As a resident of Colombo I should say though we had swimming pools those days the people have been denied it today. We suggest to the Minister that we want swimming pools as a common facility. Access to SSC or NCC clubs is too expensive to schoolchildren who should have an affordable facility. There is also the need for indoor sports facilities, specially during the rainy season.

We should draw special attention to the speech made by MP Sanath Jayasuriya wherein he stressed the responsibility of our sportsmen. They owe a responsibility to represent the country when they take part in sports events. I am one who had been elected to the Cricket Board. I am also the president of the Board elected for most of the terms. Therefore, I would like to express my views on the pre and post World Cup period as well as World Cup period.

I was elected to the Cricket Board in 93-94 prior to the World Cup victory. My father was a sarong-clad Sinhala businessman – a mudalali in common parlance. I am greatly proud of my father. My friend Mr. Dharmadasa’s father is also a Sinhala businessman – a Mudalali!

Despite not being the son of a father who is wearing tie, we are all equal here in this supreme legislature. I do not wish to talk of the background of other children. I would like to speak on one thing on what Minister Gamini Lokuge spoke of when I was the president of the Cricket Board.

I remember Hansie Cronje of South Africa, a cricket personality, was caught for match-fixing and the Interpol, CBI of India conducted an international investigation.

Hansie Cronje said that one Guptha is involved in the offence and admitted his guilt. He was later removed from international sports. Later on a report by him Azharudin of India admitted his guilt. Alec Stewart of England was found guilty – the England’s Board of Cricket arrived at a separate verdict on him and Saleem Malik of Pakistan received a life-ban for cricket.

The other two referred to in the report were Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva. I also received a copy of the report in my capacity as President of the Cricket Board. It says 15000 dollars were received, then the world cup had been won by Sri Lanka. It had been alleged that there was match-fixing.

Later we appointed a committee. Now Interpol does not summon Minister Lokuge or Minister Mahindananda for playing matches those days), after having the committee we sought legal advice for a panel of lawyers.

We never thought that our cricketers for whom we had spent lakhs of rupees were guilty of match-fixing in 1992 at Lucknow, India. We checked the results of the match as to how it was lost within 3 ½ days. We also inquired as to who were the captain and vice-captain. We referred the matter to our panel of lawyers. Our lawyer, Mr. Fernando headed the inquiry committee. We summoned these two cricketers and asked them to give evidence. Later we stopped the proceedings of the inquiry committee as warranted by the laws of the country and the fact that the match was played in India, the cricketers did not play on contract basis, Indian cricket’s problems relating to contracts and technological reasons, not that they were discharged and acquitted. These cricketers were provided the opportunity to explain their position. Since we could not proceed with the inquiry, that team was suspended. We played for the World Cup and won it.

Mr. Arjuna’s fund collected a sum of approximately Rs. 500 lakhs to construct a hostel for provincial cricketers. A land was also allocated during Chandrika’s time. He could explain as to what happened to this Foundation. Monies were collected for the fund, where is the budget of the fund?

What happened to the funds. If a land was set apart who had in fact received it? Was it transferred to anybody. The report on that too could be furnished. However, the people expect the project will get off the ground. If funds were collected from the public for a hostel, the responsibility is there to reveal what had happened to it. Mr. Ranatunga who is in all other things could have the need to ... (Hansard not clear)

After the World Cup, we had received a number of invitations for World Eleven. It is at this the match-fixing began. Eleven players get together and go to a another country to play matches. The Captain gets some money and he disburses them at the rate of 2000 dollars each. There is no budget. We stopped this.

The reason is that such matches are played in Sharja or Singapore. While the match is in progress they fix the match because it is the “World Eleven Entertainment”, later cricketers are told to score 50 or 20 and be out. Then the National Team comes to be aware of this.

This is the “World Eleven System”, Hashan Tillekaratne said he came to know about it since 1992. You know who was the captain from 1992. If there was “match-fixing”, who did it? Who collected funds for the World Eleven.

I regret that I had to spend the most important part of my speech on these hopeless things. Minister Dullas Alahapperuma knows how we are challenged. The truth is that there are people who have a real interest in Cricket. Those people together with their brothers go to a private channel every Mondays and sling mud at our government, leadership, our young parliamentarian Namal and use the media in a most indecent

manner. We have the facts with us. As Minister Lokuge said we can accept any challenge. We know who the offenders are? Who resorted to corruption and pointed finger at others? The names of M/s Liyanagama and Naveen Marapana were mentioned.

They have no forum to answer. It is very unreasonable. They should be given the opportunity to answer if their names are included in a report. You have not so far made this report public.

We have also not received it. A member of Parliament speaks of a report which we have not seen. It is very unreasonable. We have high hopes in you. You have a vision. We wish all success in your efforts to provide an opportunity to each child to represent his sport at national level through the Mahinda Chinthana which provides our sports and eventually facilitates access to our sportsmen to international sports events.

Cricketers also have political affiliations - Jayasuriya

Excerpts of the speech made by MP Sanath Jayasuriya in Parliament on Wednesday

We players have made huge sacrifices to bring Sri Lanka cricket to the present strong position it is in. We are proud of our commitment and sacrifices having brought Sri Lankans to the top in international cricket. We won the World Cup and became runners-up twice at the World Cup tournaments thereafter. When we were playing cricket we did not get involved in administrative matters.

When our country was engulfed in a war situation we were able to bring foreign cricketers to Sri Lanka and play matches with them. They never faced a situation similar to the situation that the Sri Lankan cricket team faced in Pakistan in 2009. We should be thankful to the Government for that.

There may be weaknesses and shortcomings in the cricket administration. That is why the Government after observing these shortcomings took steps to change the cricket interim committee. Not only talking about weaknesses and shortcomings in cricket, we should also be mindful about the changes we should make in our system for the betterment of cricket.

We have promoted cricket in our country and bring talented cricketers to the national team from the provinces and districts. Now we are in a good position in international cricket. Cricketers also have political affiliations. But they should be determined to come out with their best performance under any captaincy. They should think that they are playing for Sri Lanka.

For the defeats in matches that we are facing at present the Government in power or the Sports Minister is not responsible. To improve talent Cricketers should be provided with new technology and techniques. Not only in cricket this should be the case in any sport.

The financial crisis that the Cricket Board is facing can exist in any institute. When we look at the scheduled matches for the Sri Lanka team in the coming year, solving the present financial crisis will not be an issue.

 - RW