No choice on 2024 Under-19 World Cup but as SLC suspension row rumbles on

However, ESPNcricinfo understands the ICC has not but decided on the U-19 World Cup and can focus on the internet hosting of that match solely on the subsequent board assembly on November 21. It is discovered that there was additionally no dialogue throughout the ICC of suspending SLC in July.

According to Silva, ICC deputy chairman Imran Khwaja had taken particular curiosity in potential political interference in Sri Lanka. “About five months ago, the ICC came here when there was news of political interference, and held an inquiry,” Silva stated. “Mr. Imran Khwaja met the minister and the president (of Sri Lanka), and told them the ICC would be taking it seriously if you don’t properly control this. This [the suspension] is not something that happening in one or two days.

“Khwaja got here on May 10. I later went to an ICC assembly from July 10 to 14. In their report, it says that Sri Lanka Cricket is being completely politically abused. Then they instructed me we’ve just a few choices: both we ban Sri Lanka, cease the cricket in Sri Lanka, or cease the cash to Sri Lanka. I instructed them not to try this. So really we have been going to be suspended between July 10 and 14, and we [SLC officials] prevented it.”

According to information that ESPNcricinfo has, it is only after SLC complained to the ICC about political interference in November 2022 that Khwaja travelled to Sri Lanka on a fact-finding mission. It is understood the ICC did not find prima facie evidence of direct interference at the time.

The background to this issue is that SLC and the country’s sports minister Roshan Ranasinghe have been in conflict over the past year, with Ranasinghe making accusations of corruption and mismanagement in the cricket board, while Silva and SLC accuse him of meddling with cricket.

Both Silva and Ranasinghe held media interactions separately on Saturday afternoon; both parties sometimes making personal insults. In Silva’s press conference at SLC headquarters, he stressed that both the ICC and SLC seek assurance from the highest level of Sri Lankan politics – the president of the country, essentially – that there would be no further political interference in the running of cricket in Sri Lanka.

Ranasinghe, meanwhile, outlined the sports ministry’s next steps as it attempts to have SLC’s suspension lifted by the ICC. He said the ministry would approach the ICC’s dispute resolution committee first, which is a body within the ICC that reviews appeals from boards on membership matters. If that process fails, Ranasinghe said, the ministry would look at pursuing a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.

On the home front, the ministry will seek a jugdement from Sri Lanka’s own courts that reinstall the minister’s Ranatunga-led interim committee.

It is Silva who is understood to have sought SLC’s suspension, as a means of putting pressure on the Sri Lankan government. When asked directly about this at the press conference, he said: “I’ve already stated this was one thing that was going to occur for 5 months. If I can pull strings like that, I’ve obtained to be a formidable individual.

Earlier within the day, SLC’s vp Ravin Wickramaratne instructed ESPNcricinfo: “As a full member, it is our right to go to the ICC.”

With inputs from Madushka Balasuriya.