Officials accused of bullying Sri Lanka players

Shane Warne's recent visit to Sri Lanka, a trip designed to raise awareness of the plight of tsunami victims and raise much-needed funds for rehabilitation, has sparked a controversy that has erupted into the public arena this week after Arjuna Ranatunga, the former World Cup-winning captain, accused Thilanga Sumithipala, the chairman of the cricket board's Cricket Aid programme, of "bullying" Sri Lanka's national players into boycotting a special fundraising dinner.

The 500-wicket dinner was organised in Colombo at the end of Warne's brief visit to raise tsunami-relief funds for two local charities, the Muralidaran-Vaas-Gunasekera Foundation and Sahanaya. Funds were raised through the sale of Rs10,000 tickets, and several Sri Lanka cricketers had apparently been keen to show their support by purchasing tickets and attending. However, Muttiah Muralitharan was the only contracted player who eventually turned up.

When the board held a press conference on Wednesday to review the progress of Cricket Aid, board officials explained their absence by claiming that players and officials were unaware of the dinner. Sumathipala cast doubt on the charitable credentials of the organisers, and claimed that Muralitharan had told him that he was unaware of the details of the fundraising dinner. "The question is who organised this dinner and where has the money gone to?" he asked. "Do they belong to an organisation with a constitution? When I asked [Chaminda] Vaas about it he said he knew nothing and Murali told me he was out of the country and did not know who organised it."

However Muralitharan, who had personally invited Warne to Sri Lanka and was involved in organising the fundraising dinner, categorically denied this in an article in the Island newspaper on Friday. "I never told anything like that to Thilanga," Muralitharan was quoted as saying. "I was highly involved in the project and aware of the function." Cricinfo has also learnt that Vaas, a new partner in the Muralidaran-Vaas-Gunasekera Foundation, was also aware of the dinner.

Ranatunga, a deputy cabinet minister and a long-time foe of Sumathipala's, claimed that the players were being bullied. "I know that the players are scared to come out and say what they have to say," said Ranatunga in the Island. "Several players wanted to attend the dinner, but were warned not to and they were scared to speak up. If the players speak up some of the board officials will not be able to show their faces in public."

Ranatunga continued his scathing attack on the administration. "It's a dictator who's running the show now, and not just with one puppet but a whole brace of puppets on board," he said. "The whole thing hurts the present Sri Lanka Cricket set-up, as Warne refused to do the board's bidding. During times like this, people are trying to promote their hidden agendas. These petty politics need to stop."

Meanwhile, Kushil Gunasekera, Muralitharan's manager and the driving force behind the Muralidaran-Vaas-Gunasekera Foundation, a charity which focuses on small community-level projects, reacted angrily to Sumathipala's apparent slur on their credentials.

"We were established two years ago and the charity was incorporated under the Trust Ordinance Act in Sri Lanka," said Gunasekera. "We are a registered trust with a constitution of which is handled by Sudath Perera Associates. Both Murali and Vaas are signatories. What's more, we do not have any administration expenses because we all give our time voluntarily. Serving humanity through compassion and serving humanity through compulsion are two different things. The people who are making these allegations do not understand the difference."

Sumathipala was appointed chairman of Cricket Aid soon after the tsunami. The job thrust him back into the public limelight after the immigration scandal last year that led to his being held in police custody, a controversy that had threatened to derail his ambitions to become president of the International Cricket Council. After being granted bail, Sumathipala also took up the post of Sri Lanka Cricket's "international envoy", and is now their chief negotiator on ICC issues.