Next week Sri Lanka Cricket’s interim committee under the chairmanship of DS de Silva will complete one year in office. At least De Silva and his committee had achieved what his predecessor Arjuna Ranatunga could not, that is remaining in office for one year. Ranatunga’s reign as chairman lasted for 11 months before he was unceremoniously thrown out by Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge with whom he had a running battle during his tenure.

De Silva was appointed amidst several criticism connecting his past to betting and whether he was the right man for the job to carry Sri Lanka cricket forward with his limited knowledge of man-management skills. He was a Colombo Municipal playground instructor and won fame through his cricketing prowess. Through sheer dint of hard work he worked himself up to become his country’s leading right-arm leg-spinner, the likes of which has not been matched even today. Geoff Boycott, Ravi Shastri and Ravi Ratnayeke are similar examples. They were cricketers with limited talent like De Silva but by hard work and determination reached the top. Ratnayeke who came into the national team as first change bowler ended up opening the Test batting with Sidath Wettimuny and scoring 93 in a Test in India.

It is unfortunate that De Silva played a major part of his cricket during the pre-Test era and in England where he appeared frequently in League cricket as a professional. The cricket world was witness to his talent only for 12 Tests and 41 ODIs in a three-year period. When Sri Lanka was finally granted Test status and played their inaugural Test against England in 1982, De Silva who formed an integral part of the team was 39 years old and to-date remains Sri Lanka’s oldest player on Test debut.

To De Silva’s credit it must be mentioned that with the limited resources available to him at SLC he has somehow managed to go to the Northern and Eastern provinces and distribute cricket materials to the schools. The performance of the Sri Lanka under 19 cricketers in the recently concluded under 19 World Cup in New Zealand where they reached the semi-finals is another feather in his cap. He did what other past administrators had failed to do – select a side representing the best talent from all the provinces and putting them under the watchful eyes of Aravinda de Silva, arguably the best batsman produced by Sri Lanka in the post-Test era. Picking Aravinda as consultant to the Sri Lanka under 19 team was a good move for there is no better individual to pass on his skills and experience to youngster than him. Further two of Aravinda’s former team mates – Naveed Nawaz and Upul Chandana were appointed as head coach and fielding coach respectively. This combination proved a successful support team for the under 19 World Cup. Further the selection process involved players from all provinces not those selected by the national selection committee as in the past. The junior selection committee headed by Sunil Wikramanayake got plenty of feedback from the provinces before they recommended a player to the pool. There was more depth in selection and the range was wide.

Further, De Silva has managed to get work on Sooriyawewa ground started, complete work on the Pallakelle ground and also upgrade the once popular De Soysa Stadium in Moratuwa which today is the venue for the Inter-provincial Twenty20 semi-finals and final. With Sri Lanka facing a paucity of Test matches for 2010, the current IC has managed to somehow get India to play a three-Test series at home in July without which the country would have played just two Tests against West Indies for the entire year.

If one has to be critical of the De Silva administration it is that the club infrastructure and development has been ignored, no proper tours scheduled for the Sri Lanka ‘A’ team, and the failure to cut down on the over-sized staff at SLC which today stands at 242 with a good majority of them not having proper seats and working space. It is no secret to state that SLC expends around Rs 170 lakhs per month on payment of salaries to these employees and a further Rs. 150,000 per month on fuel for six pool vehicles and Rs. 350,000-400,000 per month paying mobile phone bills. The De Silva administration has failed to curb these rather unnecessary expenditures at a time when SLC’s hands are tied due to lack of finances. The failure to utilise the experience of CEO Duleep Mendis, the world’s most experienced cricket administrator and Marketing Manager Charith Senanayake by curtailing their day-to- day activities has been another negative factor.

If De Silva wants to fulfill his ambition of stirring up a new revolution by giving school cricket, club coaching and national team priority, he will need to tighten the loose ends first. Otherwise he will also end up as some of his predecessor’s of the past.