Sri Lanka Cricket pulls out hit list

Youth team guardian Shane Fernando chopped from post as first casualty three days before players left for World Cup:

by Callistus Davy

Youth World Cup team manager Shane Fernando has woken up to one of the worst nightmares possible, the first victim of a probable witch-hunt or move to purge Sri Lanka Cricket's echelons of any opposition to authority.

But Fernando was no player of shadowy games as a team manager with his only misdemeanor in the eyes of detractors being that he preferred to see Nishantha Ranatunga winning the top post at Sri Lanka Cricket instead of Thilanga Sumathipala who eventually won the January 3 election of office-bearers.

Although a decision was taken to oust him from the post, an investigation by the Sunday Observer has revealed that official dissent against Fernando's removal had been suppressed, an indication of the power-politics now in place at the establishment.

Fernando was the ICC's Media Operations Executive at the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka in 2012 and among his functions as manager of the Under-19 team over the past 12 months was the coordination of player welfare, school obligations and selections besides organizing workshops related to team etiquette and protocol, media ethics and psychology.

In stripping him of his status and recognition, Sri Lanka Cricket has told Fernando in a letter that he will have to only serve as assistant manager while the head of the Under-19 Selection Committee Ranjith Madurusinghe takes over the manager's post during the Youth World Cup in Bangladesh which starts next week.

But Fernando will not have any of it and fired a reply back to Sri Lanka Cricket saying his removal was unjustified and unwelcome to the players and it would be better that the tour goes ahead without him as valuable funds would be wasted in his name on tour.

"I have held the post of Manager Sri Lanka Cricket Under-19 from January 2015 and up until today (January 14, 2016) I have conducted my duties to the entire satisfaction of my superiors at Sri Lanka Cricket. At no point have I been informed of any incompetence in me executing and fulfilling the duties pertaining to this role.

"I am not willing to accept the role of Assistant Manager Sri Lanka Cricket Under 19, which I consider has been done unfairly due to reasons unknown to me. And the position of assistant manager at this stage of the upcoming World Cup to handle logistics as you have indicated will be a waste of valuable SLC funds due to me completing all the required documents and already forwarded to ICC", Fernando said in his letter.

Officially Fernando's contract was to run until the end of the Under-19 World Cup.

Fernando played First Class cricket for the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) as an opening batsman after bagging the Outstation Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year prize in 1986 while representing St. Thomas' College Kotte.