SLC writes .....

Sri Lanka Cricket with reference to the article captioned ‘Lankans need not be overly bothered’ writes:

We refer to the article that appeared in your newspaper (2nd September 2008), written by Elmo Rodrigopulle under the above heading and wish to clarify certain matters which are baseless and opinionated and may mislead the cricket loving public.

Firstly on the sub-heading of ICC Champions Trophy, the entire cricketing world is aware the reasons behind the postponement of the tournament and your writer to suggest that its due to some strange relationship between SLC and BCCI is surprising specially to come from a person which such cricketing knowledge.

High profile BCCI officials such as Mr. Niranjan Shah, Mr. Dulip Vensarkar, and Mr. Ajith Wadekar’s visits for the games sure will help the public to assess the level of relationship between SLC and BCCI.

On the issue of ‘Mathi baulked again’, Sri lanka Cricket wish to sate that all entitled tickets (75) were given to the players and family, however when the a verbal request for another 100 complementary tickets were made by the manager, SLC requested the same in writing for audit purposes to maintain transparency and the players refused to submit a request but the 100 tickets were given to the manager.

Mr. Mathivanan wanted to buy 40 tickets to distribute for players for the 4th ODI and the TOC requested a written request due to the bulk quantity, however he refused and verbally abused a well respected TOC female member before forcing his way to get the mentioned tickets.

The TOC member has already lodged a verbal complaint to the Chairman and the matter was discussed during the last IC meeting.

Further, by purchasing tickets to distribute to players the said official was simply trying to create a rift between the players and administration and it’s a pity that Mr. Elmo Rodrigopulle feels this is straight batting.