Arjuna Ranatunga

The ICC has placed Sri Lanka as the next of kin as the venue of the Champions Trophy on which they will take the final decision today.

The ICC heads will have a teleconference today about the final decision on whether Pakistan will go ahead as the scheduled venue or it would be shifted Sri Lanka. Players from England, Australia and New Zealand are not happy on travelling to strife torn Pakistan.

So far, two of the Indian sub-continent giants – India and Pakistan are campaigning in unison that the tournament should be held in Pakistan as planned. Meanwhile, Bangladesh who missed being included in the line-up as a result of their low standing in the ICC rankings list have declared that they could be fitted in as one of the contenders to make the numbers in such case of a country deciding to pull out of the tournament.

Now with the pulling out of South Africa from the championship, the situation has run deep and Sri Lanka’s official stance on the matter has also become very important.

However Chairman SLC Arjuna Ranatunga refused to comment on the issue.

If Sri Lanka changes its normal stance and goes against their sub-continent allies the situation may erupt into a diplomatic issue. When contacted by The Sunday Times a diplomatic source said: “Still the ball is in the court of the cricket authorities and we have no intention of intervening unless it really blows up to a political issue”.

However, Sri Lanka, the official alternate venue, is on stand-by. The tournament is scheduled to begin on 12th of September.

Meanwhile if the games are shifted to Sri Lanka, Dambulla is in the agenda as one of the venues. We learn that some of the Lankan players are rather sceptical about playing games on the Dambulla wicket, which has turned into a batsmen’s graveyard.

At the same time any games, which will be played in Dambulla, will be day games only. According to reliable sources, the cash-strapped SLC could not repair the lighting system on the venue on time as the cost was in the region of 30 million rupees.