Colombo: Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), the governing body of cricket in the island nation, is hopeful about the country's international cricket comeback, expecting the revocation of suspension after having a ‘constructive’ discussion between International Cricket Council (ICC) CEO Jeff Allardice and country's Sports Minister Harin Fernando.
The ICC had announced Sri Lanka’s suspension during the ICC ODI World Cup in November last year citing political interference in its governing body, resulting in a shift of venue to South Africa for the ICC Men’s U-19 World Cup which, starting from January 19.
Sports Minister Fernando posted his picture with Allardice on ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, saying, "Had the great pleasure of meeting ICC CEO Geoff Allardice, and had constructive discussion and of a way forward for SLC."
The decision on suspension will be announced in March after Allardice’s submission of his findings during his meeting with Fernando and the agenda among other things.
Notably, this was the second visit from an ICC official to the island nation to ascertain the level of political interference into cricket administration in the country. Earlier, Imran Khwaja, the ICC Deputy Chair, had paid a visit to the country around June last year to study the turbulent cricketing scenario here.
Roshan Ranasinghe, the former sports minister, had asked ICC to replace the entire SLC board with an interim committee led by former captain Arjuna Ranatunga. However, the move was stayed by the country's court of appeal.
But then, ICC suspended SLC’s membership from the full member nation (Test playing country) list, stating, "International Cricket Council Board has suspended Sri Lanka Cricket's membership of the ICC with immediate effect.”
"The ICC Board met today and determined that Sri Lanka Cricket is in serious breach of its obligations as a Member, in particular, the requirement to manage its affairs autonomously and ensure that there is no government interference in the governance, regulation and/or administration of cricket in Sri Lanka. The conditions of the suspension will be decided by the ICC Board in due course," it added.
Ranasinghe was eventually removed from his position, which revived hopes of the suspension being revoked in the next ICC board meeting.
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