Visionary versus the missionary

by Callistus Davy

Two men of contrasting lifestyles will blow the lid on cricket administration today in a bid to draw up a new blueprint for the country's most adored passion while Sri Lanka struggles to come up with an elected set of custodians with a prescription to remedy the governing affairs of the sport.

For Thilanga Sumathipala, touted as the self-styled visionary whose formula was often usurped by high-handed politics in the past, it will probably mark his last ditch battle for a comeback while his sworn rival Nishantha Ranatunga will have much to lose after rising from almost nowhere to become the most progressive new cropper as the two protagonists vie for the top post at Sunday's election of Sri Lanka Cricket. Sumathipala could have in all probability got the match he may have wanted in Ranatunga who now sees himself as the next best thing that has happened to Sri Lanka cricket after his elder brother Arjuna, who is in his campaign team, lifted the World Cup almost 20 years ago.

But looming are the fears that the election outcome may not spell the beginning of a new era for cricket administration in the country unless a thorough review of the electoral process is done that could possibly see the entry of the untainted.

"We must change this Constitution (structural governance) and until we do that we cannot move forward (with a clean administration)", said outgoing Sri Lanka Cricket chief Sidat Wettimuny who has served in seven of the eight Interim Committees that replaced sacked or vacant cricket administrations over the past 15 years.

Wettimuny has given the government a proposal to change the Constitution of Sri Lanka Cricket if election horse-trading and squabbles are to be eradicated along with the same old faces that keep out what is being referred to as the 'gentlemanly tribe' that despises election bickering.

The present Constitution enables as many as 20 elected members to serve the decision-making Executive Committee that makes it second only to the government's Cabinet of ministers which in turn creates the rush and squabble for seats.

But with yet no hint of the government intervening to have Sri Lanka Cricket change its ways of electing office-bearers to run the sport's administration, Wettimuny will have just one option to "mind my own business" and wish that what his Interim Committee did over the past nine months will not be consigned to the flames. "I hope they (elected office-bearers) will continue with what we have done. We have put a lot of things in motion from the cricket side to the financial side and development of the game from provincial level", said Wettimuny.