By Revatha S. Silva
In what can be termed a developing tug-o-war behind the screen in local cricket administration, between Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) executive committee and the Aravinda de Silva-led Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), SLC last week decided to stand firmly on its stance to hold the next edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) on time, from 30 July.
Exerting more and more pressure on the SLC ex-co, the de Silva-led Committee, which also comprises Kumar Sangakkara, Roshan Mahanama, and Muttiah Muralitharan, and the National Sports Council (NSC) under the chairmanship of Mahela Jayawardene, had been adamant of forming the LPL as a different entity under a special governing body in the Indian Premier League (IPL) model.
[caption id="attachment_144732" align="alignleft" width="356"]
Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, and Aravinda de Silva, in their capacity as leading figures of the Cricket Technical Advisory Committee and National Sports Council, are seemingly at loggerheads with SLC[/caption]
“Why should we need new owners for the job that we have already completed successfully,” asked a senior ex-co member of SLC, angered while explaining the current situation.
“Sri Lanka Cricket is an entity where you have 21 executive committee members at present. We are the ones who take the policy decisions. We have managed this game from 1948. What they (TAC) want is to own the LPL which we formed last year. They are in a mighty rush to do it. That is for their benefit,” the said official stressed.
Our effort to get to know the views of the TAC failed yesterday.
“They have been adamant that the LPL should have a separate entity, under a separate governing body, and under a separate staff. They want to do an IPL here, that too apparently for their own personal financial gains but not for any overall betterment of the sport,” the official further added.
Earlier, on 8 June, SLC reiterated that the second edition of the LPL will be held from 30 July to 22 August 2021 as announced earlier. On Sunday (20), SLC officially announced the commencement of player registration process for the event will begin from yesterday (21). The proposition of the event's start getting late this year is a necessity of the TAC and the NSC, the said official further clarified. There were media reports earlier that the LPL second edition may get off only later this year.