Sri Lanka Cricket suspended by ICC board،
Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has been suspended by the ICC with immediate effect due to significant government interference in the administration of the board.
Although the ICC called the sanction a “suspension,” it is actually a warning as the ICC seeks to prevent further government interference in the functioning of the SLC. As things stand, the suspension will not have any immediate serious impact on Sri Lankan cricket. Sri Lanka’s World Cup campaign ended on Thursday and there will be no cricket in the country until December. No ICC funds are expected to be released to SLC until January.
With the ICC quarterly meetings scheduled from November 18 to 21 in Ahmedabad, the ICC board met online on Friday to address the SLC situation – government interference in all areas, from administration to finance and even questions regarding the national team. The next course of action will be decided at the ICC board meeting on November 21.
The ICC’s decision may seem unexpected, but SLC was perhaps not surprised. It is understood that SLC has asked the ICC board to take this extreme step. The ICC also continues to recognize SLC President Shammi Silva, who is currently in India and attended Friday’s meeting, as its elected representative. He is also likely to be present at the ICC meetings in Ahmedabad, as the ICC board has authorized SLC representatives to be present as observers.
“The ICC Board of Directors met today and determined that Sri Lanka Cricket was in serious breach of its obligations as a member, in particular the obligation to manage its affairs autonomously and to ensure that “There was no government interference in the governance, regulation and/or administration of cricket in Sri Lanka,” the ICC said in a statement. “The conditions of the suspension will be decided by the ICC Governing Body in due course.”
On Monday, Sri Lanka’s Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe had sacked the SLC board and installed an interim committee headed by Arjuna Ranatunga, but Sri Lankan courts essentially reinstated the board a day later in issuing a 14-day suspension order in the official gazette which dissolved the board. .
Since then, the affairs of Sri Lanka Cricket have been debated at length in the country’s parliament. But on Friday, when the ICC suspension came, it was the elected SLC board led by Silva that was running cricket in the country.
Even though the caretaker committee was in power, the appointment of such committees by the government had never led to suspension by the ICC before. The previous time an interim committee was in place, from 2014 to 2015, the ICC placed funds owed to SLC in escrow and demoted SLC to observer status at board meetings. But they remained officially members of the ICC.
The Minister of Sports of Sri Lanka also had the role of ratifying all Sri Lankan national teams, in accordance with the National Sports Act, in force since 1973.
SLC general manager Ashley de Silva declined to comment on the matter.
SLC is the second full member to be suspended by the ICC in the last four years after Zimbabwe Cricket was suspended in 2019 for government interference. However, unlike the case of Zimbabwe, where all cricket activities in the country were abruptly stopped, in addition to the freezing of funding, the ICC will tread carefully in the case of Sri Lanka.
