5th Column

My dear Eran,

It is unusual to write about cricket for two weeks running, but I thought must, because taking over and forming a new ‘Sri Lanka Cricket team’ is truly a remarkable event. It is one that millions of fans have been waiting eagerly for decades. It is also one which most people believed would never happen.

You have, in effect, been appointed the captain of a team that includes legendary cricketers such as Sidath, Roshan and Kumar, and also includes others from the corporate and legal sectors. It will be hard to beat such a team. Most importantly, the integrity of this team appears to be very high.

Some, who are not familiar with your past, questioned your knowledge of cricket. We do recall that you opened batting for Royal with the late Kevin. You also played in the Royal-Thomian exactly 50 years ago, which Royal nearly lost, until Ranjan, now the ICC’s chief match referee, saved that game.

You played cricket briefly for the Tamil Union thereafter before pursuing further studies. That led you to become an economist and a banker. Then you took to politics and chose the Greens. You were a State Minister of Finance. Thereafter, you and many others broke away to join the telephone party.

Eran, you are not the first politician to head cricket’s governing body. JR did it first. Many others such as NM, Lakshman J and Tyronne followed him. The most famous was Gamini. He paved the way for our country to get full ICC membership. Your job is to justify that status, which many question now.

Your appointment had the telephone chaps in a spin. They didn’t know how to respond. Clearly, they were upset that you had accepted a job Anura sahodaraya offered you. That is why, even when you resigned from all of their committees, Secretary Ranjith asked you to resign from the party as well.

There is always politics involved in these matters. The telephone chaps were so annoyed, not so much because you left them. It was because of the broader message you were sending to the public: that someone such as you, a rare gentleman in politics, saw no future for himself with the telephone party.

It is sad that Sajith couldn’t rise above politics in this. In contrast, Navin, still in the Green camp, was able to appreciate your appointment. Some would say they are both chips off the old blocks. That does not in any way take away from the fact that Anura sahodaraya was killing many birds with one stone!

The maalimaawa chaps have been found wanting on several fronts and have been struggling to keep their promises, Anura sahodaraya must have thought that cleaning up cricket would give him some breathing space. So, to make sure the job gets done, he hires someone from the telephone party!

On the one hand, Anura sahodaraya is projecting himself as being above party politics and will make appointments on merit, even if that does not apply to jobs such as Secretary to the Treasury. On the other hand, he is getting rid of the mess in Sri Lanka Cricket while also annoying the telephone party.

To give credit where it is due, it is a bold move by Anura sahodaraya. He achieved what Satellite and Uncle Ranil failed to do – reform our cricket administration. That he had to ‘hire’ someone from the opposition to do so only
confirms our suspicions about the lack of adequate resources in
maalimaawa.

He must be hoping that history will record that it took one Dissanayake, Gamini, to give birth to Sri Lanka as a fully-fledged test playing country and that it took another Dissanayake, Anura, to resurrect it from its death bed. He knows how important cricket is and how it almost is a religion to many of us.

That brings us to accusations that have been thrown at you since you took over, Eran. Your critics say that instead of cricket being a religion to us, you will bring religion to cricket. I trust you won’t. That is because, in your public life so far, as a banker and a politician, you never brought religion into it.

We hope you will continue in that manner. You have a good team in Sidath, Roshan and Kumar and the others to assist you. You will need to make sweeping changes. Why, there is even that famous Chitrasiri report on how to reform the game’s administration which you might consider implementing.

We hope that you are given a free hand without interference from anyone. We congratulate you on your appointment and hope you succeed in this Herculean task. Instead of resting on its past laurels, we wish Sri Lanka cricket will be born again – and you know I mean it in the nicest possible way!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: When Anura sahodaraya took over, we expected him to reverse Uncle Ranil’s economic policies. He didn’t. Then, he hired you. He is now facing problems at the Treasury while wearing the Finance Minister’s hat. Isn’t the solution obvious? Do ask him to give your good friend Harsha a call, Eran!