In the wake of fast deepening political crisis in the Sri Lanka, Cricket Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Cricket Board and National Sports Council (NSC) members have collectively decided to resign from their respective positions, Cricket Age exclusively learns.
Sri Lanka’s entire cabinet aside from the president and his sibling prime minister resigned from their posts on Sunday as the ruling political clan seeks to resolve a mounting economic crisis, with a social media blackout failing to halt another day of anti-government demonstrations.
The south Asian nation is facing severe shortages of food, fuel and other essentials – along with record inflation and crippling power cuts – in its most painful downturn since independence from Britain in 1948. All 26 ministers in the cabinet aside from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his elder brother the prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, submitted letters of resignation at a late-night meeting
In February last year, out of nowhere, Iconic Roshan Mahanama, Former skipper Kumar Sangakkara and legendary spinner Muttiah Muralitharan were named in the four-member TAC headed by Aravinda de Silva by then Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa. However, later Mahanama, a man of principle, decided to gracefully walk away from this utterly USELESS and MANIPULATIVE committee.
According to sources, after Namal’s resignation last night, the committee also decided to tender their resignations.
“They wanted to resign from the committee even before Sports Minister, but were instructed not to do so. Most likely, today they will announce their resignations” a high profile source told Cricket Age.
Likewise, NSC members, headed by former skipper Mahela Jayawardene (Sangakkara sits here also), will also be heading back home!
Tenures of Mahela, Sangakkara and Aravinda at high profile posts will be remembered for entirely ruining Namal’s reputation. Even though, Namal’s intention was genuine in bringing Sri Lanka Cricket’s glory days back by these appointments, the incompetence, infighting and agendas driven manipulations of majority of committee members further damaged not only the game, but outgoing minister’s political career graph also. Especially, under Mahela’s watch, the Sri Lanka Cricket was fully converted as a private limited company of Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC). Amid this perfect mess, Mahanama and Muralitharan were the only former legends, who always stood for the right and fought for the betterment of the game in the Island, when their colleagues were carrying their own agendas!
