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.
Shane Fernando |
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. |