Had the Cricket Board responded to the Sports Minister's request for clarification, the amendment to the Cricket Board's constitution dealing with Office Bearers (f) (iii) would have come into force for next month's annual general meeting and disqualified many candidates now vying for the office-bearer posts.
What is most disheartening is that the ExCo of the Board had initially approved the classification of its major tournaments and sent it to the Sports Minister for ratification.
The new classification of the Major tournaments was division I (Segment 'A' and 'B'), division I (limited-over), division I (Segment 'A') under 24, and inter-district (major).
The Sports Minister queried why the Cricket Board wanted a change in its constitution and the ExCo decided to give the reasons. However, for some reasons best known to certain individuals in the Board, it was never given to the Sports Minister.
According to its constitution, the Cricket Board's ExCo shall from time to time lay down which tournaments shall be considered 'Major' tournaments for the purpose of nominating persons to hold any office in the Board, subject to approval of the Minister of Sports.
Other than the hony. treasurer and the hony. asst. treasurer, no person shall be nominated to hold any office unless he has represented a club (affiliated or controlling member) or a member cricket association at cricket in any major tournament conducted or approved by the Board, according to the constitution.
Thus, the existing constitution which classifies the 'Major' tournaments as division I, II and III will remain for another year allowing individuals to violate it for the sake of holding office as has been done in the past.
The nominations for the committees at the Cricket Board's 49th AGM scheduled for March 2 (the list of nominees for the officebearer posts appeared in these columns on February 7) : TOURNAMENT COMMITTEE (5 posts) - J. Jayaweera, Lincoln Perera, C. Bernadus, R. Abeysinghe, M. Sivaratnam, R.G. de Alwis, D. Davis, Jeevaka Fernando, F. Cooray, A. Hashim, S. Kuruppu, Srinath Silva; UMPIRES COMMITTEE (5 posts) - L. Ranasinghe, S. Yatawara, Lincoln Perera, A.R.M. Aroos, F.S. Ahangama, M. Seneviratne, M. Cooray, D.P. Wickramarachchi; SPONSORSHIP COMMITTEE (5 posts) S. Vilcassim, S. de Alwis, J. Pattiaratchchi, L. Silva, L. Rodrigo, Pemlal Fernando; TOUR ORGANISING COMMITTEE (5 posts) - S. Mohotti, S. de Alwis, Wg.Cmdr. R.P. Samarasinghe, D. Amunugama, S. Vilcassim, H. Aponso, D. Perera, S. Cooray.