Minister of Sports & Youth Affairs, in a fresh letter to the International Cricket Council (ICC), has slammed the national cricket governing body and refuted the allegations of political interference.

On Friday (Oct. 27), Roshan Ranasinghe wrote to ICC’s chairman Greg Barclay and CEO Geoff Allardice, in response to the recent media reports claiming that Sri Lanka stands to lose opportunities to hold a few international cricket events due to specific actions of the sports minister, which were deemed detrimental to the operations of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and its ability to function autonomously.

Ranasinghe emphasized that it is ‘factually incorrect’ to say that he, in his capacity as the Sports Minister, had exerted political pressure on SLC.

“I view this as an extreme measure by the officials of Sri Lanka Cricket trying to prevent future legal and administrative actions against them for their financial misconduct, which is now published by the supreme and independent authority of auditing in Sri Lanka, the Government Audit Department.”

Ranasinghe said it is regrettable that the SLC officials were using the integrity and the good name of the ICC to shield their wrongdoing.

The minister reiterated neither he nor the Sri Lankan government, under any circumstances, had any political interference in the national cricket governing body.

He categorically rejected the allegation, saying it was ‘baseless and fuelled by the corrupt officials’ of SLC.

Additionally, Ranasinghe hit out at the current conduct of SLC officials, which he said was ‘shameless, traitorous, and unfaithful’ to the cricket-loving community in the country.

Recently published Auditor General’s report has made revelations regarding conflict-of-interest issues, transparency issues, fraud, corruption, excessive payments, abuse of authority, irregular transactions, irrelevant payments, evading procurement guidelines and many other misconducts on the part of the governing body of SLC, the minister said further in his letter.