Shammi Silva elected as SLC president uncontested

Shammi Silva has been elected uncontested as the new president of Sri Lanka Cricket for the next three years. Silva also held the post earlier in 2019 and this would be his second term in office. 

Jayanta Dharmadasa and Ravin Wickramaratne have retained their positions as vice-president of SLC, the cricket governing body in the island nation. Mohan de Silva will be the honorary secretary while Lasantha Wickremasinghe and Chryshantha Kapuwatte will serve as the Treasurer and Asst. Secretary respectively. Sujeeva Godaliyadda will hold the post of Asst. Treasurer.

Silva expressed his delight at being elected as the president. "I am thankful for the membership for electing me uncontested as the President of Sri Lanka Cricket," said the President-Elect, after his victory was confirmed. "This victory also proves the fact that our stakeholders have understood the yeomen service my previous administration rendered for the development of the game," he further added.

Sports Minister Namal Rajapakse confirmed virtually that Silva had been elected as the president. "I don't get involved in the election process. I will work with whoever gets elected," he had earlier told Cricbuzz.

K Mathivanan and Bandula Warnapurea were also contesting for the posts of president and vice-president respectively. They questioned the authorities over their negligence of serious atters during the election. "A very serious lapse by way of delayed submission of annual accounts and not having obtained the Auditor General's approval as required by the Constitution has been disregarded by the authorities, a major cause of concern is the upholding of trust and impartiality," Nishantha, Mathivana and Bandula alleged in a letter to the Election Committee of the SLC.

Discover more
Top Stories
news

PSL 2021 set to resume in Abu Dhabi

The Pakistan Super League (PSL) is set to resume in Abu Dhabi after it received all the approvals. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will announce the fixtures and schedule for the tournament soon. "We are grateful to UAE government, National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority, Emirates Cricket Board & Abu Dhabi Sports Council for their support in ensuring all final obstacles were removed, which has firmly put us in a position to complete our marquee event," an official release from the Board said. The tournament was postponed in March after there was a rise in Covid-19 cases within the franchise bubbles. It was later rescheduled and slated to begin on June 1 in Karachi where all the matches including the final had to be played. But the PCB had to consider hosting it in UAE after franchises requested the board for the same citing the Covid-19 issue in the country. The conditions imposed by the Emirates health advisory earlier made it almost impossible for the Pakistan board to hold the tournament in the Gulf nation. The first condition that was put by the UAE government was that all the players and staff members travelling to the country should be vaccinated, which was a difficult task for the PCB considering the amount of time it had. Secondly, most of the TV production crew is from India and the UAE has banned travel from the nation for the time being due to the horrific Covid situation in the South Asian country. The PCB and the franchises held a meeting on May 19 to discuss various possibilities regarding the tournament.

news

Difficult to play World T20 in India: Michael Hussey

Former Australia player Mike Hussey has said that the World T20 which is slated to take place in India later this year should be shifted elsewhere citing the rise in Covid-19 cases in the country. Hussey who is Chennai Super Kings batting coach has opined that it would be difficult to hold the tournament in India. “I think it’s going to be very difficult in my view to play that tournament in India,” Hussey told ‘Fox Cricket’. The former left-handed batsman further added that the cricket boards would be ‘nervous’ about going back to India for the tournament. “I think they’ll have to look some pretty big contingency plans, perhaps looking at the UAE or somewhere like that that could host the World T20. I think there will be a lot of cricket boards around the world that’d be pretty nervous about going back to India for a cricket tournament,” said Hussey. The International Cricket Council is likely to take a call on the event on June 1. Hussey was one of the members of the CSK contingent to have tested positive fo Covid-19 earlier. Talking about the same, Hussey explained that he had started to feeling some of the symptoms. “My initial test came up as a weak positive, and we were sort of hoping the next would be negative and it’d be alright, but unfortunately I got retested the next day and that came back positive,” he said. “To be honest, I had already started feeling some of the symptoms and so I was thinking, ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve got it’,” he added. The IPL 2021 was also suspended on May 4 with immediate effect after there was a rise in Covid-19 cases within the franchise teams. Apart from Hussey, KKR’s Sandeep Warrior and Varun Chakravarthy, SRH’s Wriddhiman Saha, DC’s Amit Mishra and CSK’s bowling coach L.Balaji had tested positive for Covid-19.