Winds of administrative change are sweeping through Sri Lanka Cricket, with long-standing president Shammi Silva set to step down. Government nominee Eran Wickramaratne, a former minister now in the opposition ranks, is expected to take charge of the board in an interim capacity.
Silva, who has been the SLC president since 2019, is set to step aside on Tuesday, when a meeting of the SLC's executive committee has been convened. While there are reports in the local media that some committee members want to serve out their remaining term, informed sources say there is little scope for such resistance as country's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake personally is overseeing the transition of power.
The country's Sports Law of 1973 empowers the Sports Minister to dissolve sports federations, but any government intervention in an elected national body is, in principle, in contravention of the International Cricket Council (ICC) charter. How the ICC will view the forced change remains to be seen, but reports indicate that the world body has been briefed and that there is a commitment to hold fresh elections soon.
There is a similar situation at the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), where the government has replaced the previous body led by Aminul Islam with a new one under Tamim Iqbal. Sources say there is no immediate indication of the ICC stepping in on the affairs of either the SLC or the BCB. The ICC's normalisation committee met recently, but developments in neither country are believed to have been seriously viewed.
Local Sri Lankan media reports suggest that the declining performance of the national men's team is seen as the reason for the government's intervention. The side, led by Dasun Shanaka, failed to qualify for the Super 8 stage of the recent T20 World Cup, which Sri Lanka Cricket co-hosted with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). There have also been allegations of corruption within the SLC, but an influential SLC hand, who spoke to Cricbuzz, said no formal charges have been levelled against the board.
"They have hosted the World Cup successfully, which has boosted the coffers. They are also set to host another ICC event in 2029. There has to be some publicly substantiated charge of corruption," the former president, who did not wish to be named, said. "I don't know how the ICC will react to this change. I would expect them to insist on fresh elections within six months."
Silva was similarly ousted earlier, with an interim body put in place by Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe following Sri Lanka's poor performance at the 2023 World Cup in India. The ICC subsequently suspended SLC and moved the Under-19 World Cup, scheduled for January 2024, from the island to South Africa.
Silva (65), who succeeded Thilanga Sumathipala, returned to power by winning the election in March 2025. He still has a year left in his current term, but the curtain now appears set to fall on his seven-year reign at SLC.
