Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, in an exclusive interview with Indian media, Firstpost, has insisted that ‘Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Jay Shah does not run Sri Lankan cricket’.
Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga’s comments on BCCI secretary Jay Shah “running” Sri Lankan cricket has caused a major storm across the cricketing world, especially in cricket-mad India which happens to be a superpower of the sport.
The comments have caused an uproar to the point that Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe himself offered an apology.
In an exclusive conversation with Firstpost‘s Palki Sharma, President Wickremesinghe revealed that he has since had a conversation with Shah on the matter.
“No Jay Shah doesn’t run Sri Lankan cricket. They think that Jay Shah is supporting the cricket board. But I spoke to Jay Shah and felt sorry that his name had been dragged in and apologised.
“He said, ‘My position is, whoever is the legal body, I will back. If this lot is the legal body I will back them. If the other lot is the legal body, I will back them. If there’s a third group that’s the legal body, I will back them. That’s not decided by me, that’s decided by ICC,” President Wickremesinghe said.
Ranatunga had made the comments a day after the ICC’s suspension of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), the richest sporting body in the crisis-stricken island nation, due to political interference. (NewsWire/ Firstpost)