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Sri Lanka: SA withdrawal costly
02/02/2008 16:55 - (SA)
Colombo - South Africa's decision to quit a triangular one-day series in 2006 cost Sri Lanka's hard-up cricketing body $11m, a top official said on Saturday.
South Africa pulled out after a suspected Tamil Tiger rebel bomb attack hit the convoy of Pakistan's top envoy to Sri Lanka, killing four of his bodyguards. The blast was near the South African team hotel.
"We lost 1.2 billion rupees ($11m) due to South Africa's pulling out. That was the only revenue forthcoming in 2006," Kangadaran Mathivanan, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) secretary, said.
The triangular series was due to take place in August 2006 between the hosts, South Africa and India. India stayed to play Sri Lanka, however rain disrupted the matches.
Mathivanan's remarks came after his new boss, Arjuna Ranatunga, who took over the reins of SLC last month, said that the governing body of the sport here had no money left and was banking on financial support from India to stay afloat.
Mathivanan added an out-of-court settlement with a television company cost the SLC $5m.
It was in addition to unbudgeted expenditure such as the development of a new stadium at Pallekele in the central district of Kandy and the refurbishment of the Galle stadium devastated by the 2004 tsunami.
"Pallekele cost us 225 million rupees and Galle another 500 million rupees. These are the expenditures that made us operate on an overdraft," Mathivanan said.
"The total shortfall in revenue and additional expenditure totalled 2.3 billion rupees," Mathivanan said.
Ranatunga said SLC was currently surviving on a $6m bank overdraft, but India's Test and one-day tour of Sri Lanka in July-August would boost his organisation's finances.
- AFP
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