World Cup winning former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga warned authorities that unless they acted now and take steps to address burning issues in the sport, cricket will suffer further. Ranatunga’s team was felicitated yesterday at Temple Trees as the nation celebrated 25 years of Sri Lanka’s World Cup triumph.

The function was attended by Ministers, Ministry officials, former cricketers’ cricket administrators and other dignitaries.  Ranatunga urged Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to address Sri Lanka’s cricketing woes.

“While we have established records in cricket, our administration is also creating records off the field. Honourable Prime Minister, I am not sure whether you are aware of this, today, an Anti Corruption Unit has been established in our country for there is so much corruption in the sport. Pakistan was considered the most corrupt country in cricket but even there, there was no Anti Corruption Office. But in our country they have now opened an Anti Corruption Unit,” Ranatunga revealed

“We recently saw how our respected coaches have been treated. As I entered the Temple Trees today, I felt like turning back and going home looking at some of the people attending today’s function. There are things that we can do and there are things that we can not do. When there are things that we can not do, we should hand them over to the people who are capable and move on. Some people in cricket have no shame.  I have seen our cricket officials going to COPE and having no answers for the questions that are being posed,” Ranatunga went onto say.

“I humbly request from you to appoint a committee and find out what has gone wrong. How money belonging to cricket end up in off shore accounts. How coaches with no reputation end up here while our coaches are left stranded. We don’t need batting coaches from overseas. We have some excellent coaches be it Aravinda de Silva, Marvan Atapattu or Mahela Jayawaradene.”

The International Cricket Council presented gold plated medallions to members of the World Cup winning team.