Sri Lanka government takes over cricket administration as Shammi Silva and the SLC board step aside
Sri Lanka Cricket's leadership cleared out on Wednesday, and the country's government has stepped into the gap. President Shammi Silva and the entire SLC executive committee resigned with immediate effect, and all administrative functions of the board have been temporarily moved under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.
The resignations followed a meeting between Silva and Sri Lanka's president Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in which a "cordial exit" was negotiated against a backdrop of mounting public pressure and ongoing allegations of financial irregularities at the board. Silva had been the most powerful administrator in Sri Lankan cricket for the better part of a decade.
A T20 World Cup that did the rest
The pressure had been building for weeks. Sri Lanka co-hosted the T20 World Cup with India across February and March, and the home side exited early in front of crowds that had hoped for a deep run. Complaints from players, on top of the financial allegations, gave the President's office the cover it needed to push for a structural reset.
Reports in the local press suggest the interim committee will be headed by former member of parliament Eran Wickramaratne, with former cricketers Sidath Wettimuny and Roshan Mahanama tipped for roles. Each is a name with public credibility, which the outgoing administration had largely lost.
The ICC question
The risk now is the ICC. Cricket's global governing body has a zero-tolerance policy on government interference in member boards, and Article 2.4(D) of its constitution treats any state-appointed body as a breach. Sri Lanka has been here before. The ICC suspended SLC from membership in November 2023 after the country's sports minister sacked the board and installed an interim committee under Arjuna Ranatunga, a suspension that was lifted only 79 days later, and at the cost of hosting rights for the U19 men's World Cup.
This time the government has been careful to call the takeover "temporary" and to promise an interim committee in short order. How fast that committee comes in, and how the ICC reads the framing, will decide whether Sri Lankan cricket avoids another international embarrassment before its next assignment. For the players, what matters more is that some of the noise gets turned down.
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