Sri Lankan cricket hasn’t been as good as it used to be for a long time. There was a time when cricket players like Aravinda de Silva, Muttiah Muralitharan, Arjuna Ranatunga, Sanath Jayasuriya, Chaminda Vaas, and many others played for Sri Lanka. In 1996, when Sri Lanka won the World Cup, it was a big surprise to the cricket world. Later, players like Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene won the T20 World Cup in 2014 and made their country happy. Since the stalwarts left, Sri Lanka’s change phase has seemed like it would never end.
The Sri Lanka Cricket Board recently reported a net surplus of Rs 6.3 billion. This is the most money the body has ever made in a financial year in its almost 48-year history. The leader of the team that won the World Cup, Arjuna Ranatunga, said that the record surplus money came from TV rights, sponsorships, and the International Cricket Council, not from playing and winning games.
“This extra money didn’t come from playing games and winning. This money comes from TV rights, the International Cricket Council, and sponsorships. You can’t credit the SLC government for this success,” Ranatunga was quoted as saying by Daily mirror. ik.
“We need to find out how much of this has really been used to help Sri Lankan cricket grow.”
Even getting to the World Cup seems like it will be hard for us in the future. Arjuna Ranatunga
Arjuna Ranatunga, who is also the Chairman of the National Sports Council, was upset about how Sri Lankan cricket has gotten worse over the years and how hard it is for them to beat teams like Afghanistan regularly now.
“It’s sad how far the team has fallen. We didn’t even pay attention to teams like Afghanistan when we played. But now they are doing better than us, and it’s getting hard to beat them. From here on out, it looks like even making it to the World Cup will be hard for us,” Ranatunga said.
Even though the present Sri Lankan players don’t have the same skills as their predecessors, the Afghanistan team has come a long way in a short amount of time.
The Sri Lankan team is currently playing in the World Cup Qualifiers in Zimbabwe. They are in Group B with Oman, Scotland, Ireland, and the United Arab Emirates. Dasun Shanaka’s team has only played one match against UAE so far. In that game, they won by a huge 175 runs. Sri Lanka wants to get into the ODI World Cup, which will take place in India in October and November.
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