Shammi Silva bowled out

By Callistus Davy

Colombo, April 22 (Daily Mirror) - Anti-corruption crusaders and die-hard cricket followers in the island could breathe a sigh of relief as President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has at last bowed down to ground realities and ordered Sri Lanka Cricket’s (SLC) merry-go-round dictator Shammi Silva to clear out.

Silva, the Daily Mirror exclusively learns, will be replaced by former MP Eran Wickramaratne, a former Royal College cricketer, in an Interim Committee.

In a stern measure, President Dissanayake, it is learnt, has informed Silva to resign at his earliest keeping in line with mounting pressure pouring in from several quarters, including players, who are calling for the cricket chief’s resignation.

Silva basked in the glory of alleged vote-buying and political patronage to remain in what had come to be known as the best place outside the office of the Head of State for nearly eight years as he muzzled his opponents out of the scene obsessed with absolute power and a swashbuckling nature.

It is also learnt that a senior Cabinet Minister had conveyed to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to allow for a change in the corruption-ridden SLC administration emphasising that the process was an internal matter to which the sport’s global keeper had consented.

Silva made numerous unguarded utterances at press conferences contending that funding by the ICC, team participation money at World Cups and whopping corporate sponsorships brought in money to SLC that he claimed was a private entity much to the annoyance of critics who called for a clean-up of a public institution in 2023.

Since then Silva and his Committee had been living on borrowed time and even survived one of the biggest uproars in Parliament where former Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe famously challenged the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe to choose between him and a tainted Silva.

Silva survived and Ranasinghe became the fall guy.

As many as four investigative or Probe Reports compiled by retired Supreme Court judges and the Auditor General called for an overhaul at SLC that was followed by a Cabinet sub-committee dossier compiled by ex-Justice Minister Ali Sabry.

Financial mismanagement, nepotism, dictatorship and power games at SLC was even noted by incumbent President Dissanayake whom many accused of hypocritically turning a blind-eye contrary to his election pledge for a clean-up of public institutions.

Questions are now likely to be asked on what happens to Silva over accountability at SLC after losing his immunity.

He has asked President Dissanayake for a week more before facing the outside world.