Sri Lanka Cricket Transformation Committee Chairman Eran Wickramaratne said that the key thing for the committee apart from drawing up a new constitution was to try and create a public trust.
‘Over a period of time the public trust has been broken down,’ said Wickramaratne at the monthly meeting with the media to update on the progress made by the Transformation Committee.
‘We have to show proper stewardship because we are talking about a national asset here worth Rs. 16 billion. We are looking at independent and professional governance. In the next few weeks and months we will focus more and more on that.’
‘We are also looking at financial accountability and close scrutiny by the Attorney-General and transparency and openness which Sri Lanka Cricket will be subjected to and the right to information act. We will be putting those things very much in place.’
Wickramaratne said that he was confident that the national team’s performance will improve as well once all these foundational things are put in place. ‘Even on the cricket side changes will happen. It won’t be a comfortable period.’
Speaking further Wickramaratne said that one of the big issues the country has faced from the cricketing side was the standard of cricket pitches.
‘They have been very poor. This is very critical in raising the standard of the cricketers and the standard of the game. We have started a process and got a national curator and are doing an independent review. Andy Atkinson, former head curator of ICC is the one who is actually leading the way. We are getting lots of curators who are directly being employed by SLC,’ said Wickramaratne.
‘The other area where we have started is raising the standard of coaching. It’s not a numbers game, coaching is really a quality issue that has been identified following the strict stringent interview process with the participation of globally acclaimed coach developer Ashley Ross. A new group of district and provincial coaches have been appointed. With the leadership of Ross we are also totally reviewing the High Performance Centre.’
In terms of sports medicine and player welfare Wickramaratne said that Dr. Alex Kountouris, who was the Sri Lankan team’s physio when they won the Cricket World Cup in 1996 was leading the way ‘on what needs to be done’.
A sports psychologist has also been brought in to strengthen the mental skills of the players.
In the umpiring and match refereeing areas, to raise the standards Lyndon Hannibal and Ruchira Palliyaguruge both from the ICC International Umpiring panels were appointed as umpire coach and umpire development manager focusing more on quality.