Sri Lankan Board advises player to skip meet

COLOMBO, July 16: Sri Lanka's sacked skipper Arjuna Ranatunga suffered another blow today when the cricket board disowned his first publi...

COLOMBO, July 16: Sri Lanka’s sacked skipper Arjuna Ranatunga suffered another blow today when the cricket board disowned his first public engagement after his World Cup debacle.

Newly appointed captain Sanath Jayasuriya stayed away from his predecessor Ranatunga’s widely-publicised round table last night because the Sri Lankan Board of Control for Cricket told him to do so.

The Board’s new head, Rienze Wijetilleke, denied that the Board had sent out invitations for the Ranatunga meet and said its publicity officer had mistakenly sent letters inviting journalists.

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“Those letters were retracted,” Wijetilleke said. “We also asked Sanath Jayasuriya to stay away from it and he took our advise.”

Jayasuriya’s seat was empty at Ranatunga’s `World Exclusive’ panel discussion shown live on a private television network.

An organiser said it was “unfortunate” that Jayasuriya could not be at the event. Several local newspapers too boycotted the meet which was attended by sacked deputy Aravinda de Silvaand Duleep Mendis, who also has been dumped.

Ranatunga said there was a conspiracy to undermine him as well as cricket in the country. He said he did not have sufficient evidence to back his claim but would later identify those working against him. He was unsure of being picked to play under Jayasuriya in the upcoming Test series against Australia and the One-day series — India is the third team — though he has been named in a 30-member list of probables with de Silva.

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His preference was for de Silva to take over the captaincy from him rather than Jayasuriya.

“I am not sure if I will be picked by the selectors,” he said. “It’s up to the selectors to decide and not me.”

Two other seniors, Roshan Mahanama and Hashan Tillekeratne, who had been invited to attend the discussion, were also conspicuous by their absence at the panel discussion which turned into a boring meeting with no surprises.

Neither player was immediately available for comment but Jayasuriya had last week said he looked forwardfor working closely with Ranatunga and de Silva.

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Ranatunga declined to directly react to the allegations made by their former coach Bruce Yardley that senior players treated junior team-mates like “servants”.

“I don’t know what he means by servants but to say that is to insult the entire team,” Ranatunga said.

He also denied that these were differences between him and Sri Lanka’s previous World Cup coach Dave Whatmore who is taking over the team for a second time from next month.