Sri Lankan board’s chief executive suspended

He said Anura Tennekoon, a former Sri Lankan captain, would act as chief executive until the inquiry was completed.

Ranatunga, the elder brother of Sri Lanka’s 1996 World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga and himself a former Sri Lanka player, declined to comment.

“Ultimately all of this will be detrimental to cricket so I am going to act on legal advice and keep silent,” Ranatunga told Reuters by telephone. Neither Ranatunga nor the board made any reference to the television rights deal.

But media reports and cricket officials speaking on condition of anonymity said Ranatunga had been locked in a fierce dispute with cricket board president Thilanga Sumathipala over the sale of television rights for Sri Lanka’s international matches.

The Independent Daily Mirror newspaper said on Wednesday that Ranatunga had complained to Sports Minister Lakshman Kiriella about irregularities in the bidding process after two companies were short-listed.

The newspaper said a three-member panel of lawyers had been appointed to probe Ranatunga’s conduct. Kiriella refused to comment on the newspaper report and said the dispute was an internal matter.

“Ranatunga is a paid employee of the cricket board and they can do what they like with him,” he said.

Arjuna Ranatunga and star batsmen Aravinda de Silva were named earlier this month by Indian police in a report on match-fixing and a senior lawyer is probing the allegations. Both players have denied the charges .The dispute over television rights is the latest scandal to hit Sri Lanka’s cricket board which has stumbled from one crisis to another in the past 18 months.

Before the match-fixing allegations, the cricketadministration was hamstrung by litigation over disputed board elections, charges of corruption and bitter power struggles among senior sports officials.

Bail pleas rejected
LUCKNOW: A special court on Wednesday refused bail to 14 people who were charged with having used their homes as gambling dens for cricket match betting. They were arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) on October 30 under the UP Gangsters Act.

Special Judge (UP Gangsters Act) Vichitra Kumar rejected their bail pleas after hearing the prosecution and defence.