Sangakkara’s Outburst Against Sri Lankan Administration Leads To Minister Demanding Probe

Kumar Sangakkara may have received a standing ovation after delivering the MCC Spirit of Cricket Lecture, but the Sri Lankan sports ministry is certainly not clapping. Sports minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage has ordered a probe into the content of the Sangakkara speech in which the former Sri Lankan captain had panned the cricket administration by alleging that it was corrupt.

In what was a more than an hour-long lecture, Sangakkara had said that the turning point in the Sri Lankan cricketing landscape came with the win in the 1996 World Cup, when the organisation “from a volunteer-led organisation run by well-meaning men of integrity into a multimillion-dollar organisation that has been in turmoil ever since.”

Sangakkara also blamed the partisan cronies who have taken over the running of the cricket board as the reason for his resignation from the captaincy.

According to the sports minister, Sangakkara’s scathing attack was clearly out of line and given that he is still a contracted Sri Lankan cricketer, he should have avoided speaking of either cricket administration in the country. Aluthgamage also added, “I have written to the chairman of the cricket board to go into this and get me a report immediately.”

The Lankan board has yet to come out with a formal announcement given that the Sri Lankan team is still in England in the middle of the ODI series.

Despite having showed the guts required to take on the cricketing administration in Sri Lanka, it is a surprise that he chose a platform like this. Having resigned as a captain of the side which entered the final of the World Cup, he had the option of holding a press conference and giving out the reasons for giving his captaincy away. Then, he had reasoned that he would have been too old to lead the side in the next World Cup, which meant that it would have been wiser for the board to groom someone younger.

What happens now will be interesting. The Pakistan Cricket Board had stripped Shahid Afridi off his captaincy when he had spoken out against the coach; Sangakkara has gone all the way and unloaded his frustrations against the board. If he had been contracted to the PCB, there is a good chance that he would have probably never played cricket again (after having been fined as is the PCB-wont!).

But such outbursts from Sri Lankan cricketers have been rare and few and far between. This is why the follow-up action will be followed with a lot of keen interest, especially given that Sangakkara continues to be one of the best batsman in the side.