Minister of Sports Faiszer Musthapa met with Mr. Graeme Labrooy and the rest of the members of the previous National Selection Panel this afternoon at his office and thanked them for the services rendered towards Sri Lanka Cricket, as national selectors.
In the meantime; Minister, as per the recommendations of the Cricket Advisory Committee appointed a new National Selection Panel.
The following are the members of the new Panel.
1.) Mr. Asantha De Mel – Chairman
2.) Mr. Brendon Kuruppu
3.) Mr. Hemantha Wickramaratne
4.) Mr. Chaminda Mendis.
The first task of the new selection panel will be to select the squad for the upcoming New Zealand tour.
Bowling spearhead during Sri Lanka’s initial years as test nation, De Mel played 17 tests and 57 ODIs. After retirement, he also served on the interim committee of SLC and was a national selector and manager f the U19 team’s in past.
Labrooy tenure, meanwhile, has already been termed as the worst in Sri Lanka cricket history. He will be remembered as a clueless, biased, incompetent, arrogant chief selector, who always selected players on outside influence.
In his two tenures collectively, Labrooy could not unearth a single future player for Sri Lanka cricket. Instead, he mysteriously continued to pick ‘forgotten’ players like Jeevan Mendis, Chaturanga De Silva, Sachith Pathirana from nowhere, completely on the influence of certain parties. For the ongoing test series against England, Labrooy brought discarded opener Kaushal Silva from nowhere, and he has also turned a disaster with four forgettable scores in two tests so far. In between, he tried his best to ruin the career of Sri Lanka’s most iconic player Lasith Malinga on the behalf of a former Sports Minister.
Moreover, he has proved again and again that he doesn’t care about Sri Lanka Cricket and prefers his ICC match referee responsibility over anything. Even right now, when Sri Lanka is playing a home series against England, Labrooy is performing his ICC match referee responsibility in West Indies in the ongoing Women’s T20 World Cup. For last one and half year, he has only been a ‘rubber stamp’ for those, who wants to bring their favourites into the national team.
Few days ago, Labrooy manipulated things at ICC and managed to convince some third grade officials to release a media statement on his favour, stating that the cricket governing body has no issue with his multitasking. The fact is that, it is not the ICC, but the Sri Lanka Cricket, who is suffering with Labrooy’s preferring his ICC duty.
Sri Lanka performance under Graeme Labrooy selection (15 Sep 2017)
Matches – 51
Won – 15
Lost – 31
Draw – 4
NR – 1
T20I – 14
Won – 4
Lost – 10
ODI – 25
Won – 7
Lost – 17
NR – 1
Test – 12
Won – 4
Lost – 4
Draw – 4
*SL Test squad v Pak 2017 selected by Sanath Jayasuriya.
