Interim committee takes over Lankan cricket

A four-member interim committee was appointed on Thursday to run Sri Lankan cricket after the country's sports minister sacked the under-fire cricket board.

Sports Minister Lakshman Kiriella said on Wednesday he is planning to dissolve the board after it lost a legal battle over plans to elect a new administration on Saturday.

"An interim committee has been appointed. The dissolution took effect at midnight," the board's chief executive Anura Tennekoon informed on Thursday.

Sri Lankan cricket was last run by an interim committee when the board was smothered by litigation after an election was disrupted by gun-toting intruders in 1999.

Tennekoon said the committee would be chaired by Vijaya Malalasekara, a director of the Ceylon Tobacco Co.

Former Sri Lanka players Sidath Wettimuny, Asantha de Mel and Michael Tissera are the other members named, but Tennekoon said more appointments were expected.

Just before it was dissolved, the cricket board set May 6 as the new date for the election after lawyers for board president Thilanga Sumathipala tried unsuccessfully to overturn Monday's court order that notice for the election on Saturday was not properly issued.

Kiriella said the board he had no choice but to dissolve the board after it failed to furnish proper accounts ahead of the election.

On Monday, the board sacked Tennekoon's predecessor Dhammika Ranatunga on charges of "a financial nature" soon after his brother, Prassanna, announced he would not seek re-election as vice-president because of corruption in the cricket administration.

Both men, brothers of Arjuna Ranatunga who led Sri Lanka to their 1996 World Cup victory, are members of Sri Lanka's most powerful cricketing family which has been involved in a long-running feud with the board.

Mail Cricket Editor