Former Sri Lankan captain, Arjuna Ranatunga has come down hard on the Sri Lankan team management and slammed them for the dismal show in the recently concluded three match Test series. Ranatunga also went on to criticize the Sri Lankan selection panel and went on to deem them as spineless. Addressing the media, the World Cup winning captain said, ""Sri Lanka cricket is going through the worst period. You can't blame only the players, they are demoralised. It is the fault of the management." and added, "We don't have selectors with a backbone." Ranatunga also raised calls for the sacking of Sri Lanka Cricket chief Thilanga Sumathipala. Earlier, Ranatunga had spoken to the Hindu and said, "I was very disappointed after the last cricket elections. There are roles in this country, and I was not eligible to contest as the president. Cricket was like a religion to this nation and we don’t have that religion now. That is nothing to do with the cricketers. It’s all about wrong administration. I am a politician and a cricketer but I still lose because cricket in this country is a mafia run by a business group. However, Sumathipala in a recent interview also came down hard on Ranatunga and said that if Ranatunga wants to criticise the government then he must first resign. “Every time the game is affected at the middle, Sri Lanka cricketers are not performing to the expectation, we hear this kind of noise coming from the same quarter,” Sumathipala said. The same man (Ranatunga) is continuously making every effort undemocratically, unethically to hold an office of Sri Lanka Cricket, even when he has been democratically defeated more than once,” he added.
