In a disgusting turn of events, the Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) is likely to appoint it’s controversial and notorious procurement manager Senaka Angulugaha as the head of women’s cricket affairs, Cricket Age reliably learns.
Angulugaha, who has been involved in almost all the suspicious procurement deals at SLC, is considered a loyal of Ashley De Silva.
According to sources, Ashley has recommended Angulugaha’s name for the post, which was vacated by former Sri Lanka captain Hashan Tillakaratne’s wife Apsari few months ago despite her mammoth efforts to uplift the standard of women’s cricket single handedly, after SLC plotted against her as a punishment for exposing a sex scandal in Sri Lanka cricket.
Surprisingly, just few months ago, Angulugaha had emerged one of the main culprit in suspicious procurement deals of Bowling machines and Super Sopers with an UK based manufacturer.
On June 29, Cricket Age had published a story about Angulugaha and SLC National Development Centre (NDC) head Kamal Dharmasiri one month long UK visit to purchase 20 bowling machines.
According to sources, SLC treasurer Lasantha Wickramsingha had complained about Angulugaha’s suspicious activities in those procurement deals. After the complain, just to hoodwink and to keep happy to Lasantha, SLC administrators had transferred Angulugaha at High Performance Centre (HPC) at Khetterama.
However, as Angulugaha has always been considered as procurement expert, he is the favorite of majority of SLC decision makers and ExCo members, who blindly approves everything just for the sake of getting commission from such deals.
This is the main reason, that Ashley De Silva has recommended suspicious Angulugaha as the Head of women’s cricket. Insiders says that Angulugaha plays a spy role for Ashley, by collecting Sri Lanka cricket’s all camps, sides inside informations to CEO’s cabin and in return the ever clueless CEO of SLC defends him, despite all his wrongdoings!
Apsari Tillakaratne’s claim:
In the first week of December, Apsari Tillakaratne, the former head of women’s cricket, had claimed in a video interview that exposing the scandal cost her job at Sri Lanka Cricket. Two other coaches, who were witnesses during an inquiry conducted by the Sports Ministry also had been sacked.
The Sports Ministry had conducted an inquiry with regard to the allegation in March 2018 but the findings were swept under the carpet. Then, Ministry officials quietly watched as SLC officials were bold enough to shoot the messengers. Apsari urther claimed that the accused’s vote base at SLC AGM prompted officials to maintain silence and instead take action against those who brought the incident to light.
“This incident happened during a district tournament. All three children are aged between 18 and 19. These are very poor children and when they had asked the said cricket official to find them employment, he had told them that they could earn up to Rs. 15,000 an hour by being employed at a massage parlour,” Tillakaratne claimed.
“The incident was brought to my notice by two coaches. Then I inquired about the incident and took affidavits from all three players. Incidents such as these had been taking place for a while but no one had the courage to report them. I brought the incident to the notice of officials and I was told to get it in writing. I was promised that action will be taken and the copies of the letters were sent to the Sports Minister as well,” Tillakaratne added.
“The official who was accused of misconduct had got to know that a complaint had been lodged and investigations were on. He then intimidated these players and their parents. They were eventually silenced. However, one child did not change her stance and maintained what she had initially claimed. I became helpless given the way how people went about things to silence these girls. Then my contract was not renewed. Later, there was a witch-hunt against the two coaches who first reported the incident,” Tillakaratne went onto say.
“Although the Sports Ministry conducted investigations, as the person who made the complaint, I was not called up for the inquiry which I find very strange.
“There is new hope following President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s landslide victory. He has promised that he will protect women’s rights and I hope stern action will be taken against those responsible.”
