Former fast bowler Pramodya Wickramasinghe will be added to Sri Lanka national selection committee, headed by Asantha De Mel, Cricket Age reliably learns. Wickramasinghe’s name was finalized during Yesterday’s (September 8) ExCo meeting of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC).
A member of Sri Lanka’s 1996 World Cup winning team, Wickramasinghe has played 40 Tests and 134 ODIs for Sri Lanka.
Apart from Asantha, the present selection committee, which one year contract was expired on August 15 but was told by the SLC to carry on it’s responsibility until new appointment, consist of Chaminda Mendis and Vinothen John. All the three members will be retained, as now the list of four selectors (including Wickramasinghe) will be sent to the Sports Ministry for the approval.
Wickramasinghe, a key member of Sri Lanka’s 1996 world cup campaign, had previously served as national selector in 2004.
In 2017, Wickramasinghe had made allegations during an interview to a local television station that there were “unnatural match patterns” and player selections and blamed the then management for the team’s poor performance.
However, Wickremesinghe later issued a statement clarifying his standpoint.
“At no point I was making allegations against players, what I did was to bring out floating rumours and call for a proper inquiry” he had said in the statement.
Back then, the SLC had said that players expressed profound “shock and displeasure” and rejected the allegations of Wickramasinghe as totally “baseless, disparaging and hurtful.” The players, including then captains Dinesh Chandimal and Upul Tharanga, had urged SLC to initiate an immediate inquiry by summoning Wickramasinghe as they had all been slandered by his “diabolical allegations.”
