Shammi Silva elected SLC president for third consecutive time period
Shammi Silva has been re-elected as Sri Lanka Cricket’s (SLC’s) president for a 3rd consecutive time period, alongside almost all members of the earlier government committee. All members had been voted in uncontested.
The solely change has been to the put up of treasurer, with earlier treasurer Lasantha Wickramasinghe withdrawing from competition citing different commitments. Sujeeva Godaliyadda, beforehand assistant treasurer, will take up the put up of treasurer, with the assistant treasurer to be appointed at a later date.
Aside from that, it was enterprise as regular for Silva’s group, together with vice-presidents Jayantha Dharmadasa and Ravin Wickramaratne, secretary Mohan de Silva, and assistant secretary Chryshantha Kapuwatte, as they secured contemporary phrases.
Speaking to the media following the annual normal assembly, Silva spoke about his targets for his coming two-year time period. One of which was securing sole World Cup internet hosting rights for Sri Lanka, which is because of co-host the 2026 T20 World Cup with India.
“We want get to back our missed World Cup opportunity. We missed out on hosting the World Cup alone in 2026, as we didn’t have enough grounds [to an international standard, with flood lights],” Silva stated. “We had a proposal to build a new stadium quashed by a few people. Because of that, the country lost out. In time to come, we want Sri Lanka to host more World Cup tournaments. At the same time, if we have more stadiums we can get certain tournaments that are being played in other countries to be played in Sri Lanka.”
Silva added that the proposal to construct a brand new floodlit stadium in Biyagama, about 12 miles exterior Colombo, can be checked out once more within the close to future.
A faction headed by former SLC vice-president Okay Mathivanan had been mooted to contest the elections, however declined at hand in nominations previous to the deadline in February, citing opposition to the elections going down underneath Sri Lanka’s sports activities rules as they stood on the time.
Sri Lanka’s sports activities minister, Roshan Ranasinghe, had final 12 months ushered in new rules which, amongst different adjustments, would have caused time period limits for workplace bearers in addition to barred these over the age of 70 from contesting. Mathivanan and his group had been prepared to contest underneath these rules. However, Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeals issued an interim order staying the brand new rules till June, which has resulted within the elections going down underneath the outdated rules. In impact, the brand new rules would have dominated out a number of of Silva’s faction from competing.
Meanwhile, Silva additionally revealed that discussions had been underway about potential adjustments in voting rights amongst SLC’s member golf equipment. Currently, SLC elections rely 148 votes from its members, with some golf equipment having the privilege of two votes owing to completely different classes of membership. Critics of the system have lengthy argued that it offers rise to a tradition of shopping for votes.
“We are discussing it with the sports ministry and minister. We have appointed a committee, so we’re definitely going to reduce a lot of votes,” he stated.
Changing the voting construction, nonetheless, is less complicated stated than completed, with any change to the SLC structure requiring a two-thirds majority vote from the present member base.
There can be at present a petition into consideration within the Court of Appeals looking for to overtake the SLC structure. The sports activities minister, who was named as a respondent within the case, earlier this 12 months appointed a 10-member impartial panel to draft a proposal for a brand new structure.