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29 March 2024

Sri Lanka cricket plagued by 'disunity and politics'

Tillakaratne Dilshan has lost consecutive series against England, Australia and Pakistan since he took over as Sri Lanka captain. (FILE)

Published
By AP

Squad politics, bickering and undue influence by player agents are to blame for the Sri Lanka cricket team’s plummeting form, according to the country’s sports minister.

Mahindananda Aluthgamage told parliament on Wednesday that, by the players’ own admission, disunity and miscommunication were causing the team’s losing streak and not government interference — as some critics have argued.

Sri Lanka has not won a Test in the 14 matches since ace spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan retired last year. It has lost series to England, Australia and Pakistan while drawing a largely rain-curtailed series against the West Indies.

It has also lost three one-day international series during the period.

Much of the downturn has coincided with a failure to pay national team players their wages and match fees.

Sri Lanka Cricket owes its players $6 million (€4.5 million), according to the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations, and has not paid them since March.

Aluthgamage said that he summoned a meeting of captain Tillakaratne Dilshan, senior players, coaches and the management to discuss the reasons for the poor performance and the players admitted to several shortcomings.

“At this moment, senior players stated that there’s a communication gap between the captain and the main coach,” Aluthgamage said. “It was also highlighted that there was a communication gap between the main coach and the other coaches, that there was no proper understanding between the senior players and the new comers, and that the captain does not get the fullest support from the senior players.”

“This is the true story. This is the politics within sports,” he said.

Aluthgamage also said extensive commercialisation of the game and the interference of player agents were also causing problems.

“It (commercialisation) has become a cancer to the entire game of cricket.”

“These days it has become a problem that cricket players play cricket according to the way their managers want them to. These persons influence the selection of the teams. They have become so strong as to even influence the selection of the team captain,” Aluthgamage said.

He also warned that a failure to deal with this situation would lead to even greater problems.

Sri Lanka’s government has been accused of politicising the game, appointing its favourites to run the sport and turning a blind eye to allegations of mismanagement.

Sri Lanka Cricket, once the richest sports body in the country, has run up a debt of $69 million (51 million euros), mainly because it constructed two new grounds and renovated a third for the World Cup held earlier this year.