Deep Backward Point

These days, it’s hard to figure out which cricket establishment is the most dysfunctional.

Behind door #1, we have Pakistan, stuck in a perpetual retire-ban-fix-rinse-repeat cycle. Behind door #2, we have West Indies, who keep their best batsman out of the team out of pure spite. Behind a newly emerging door #3, we have Cricket Australia, who were taken by surprise when a feisty Simon Katich pulled an Afridi by taking them on publicly.

Hashan Tilakaratne of the United National Party, not to be confused with the United People's Free Alliance

But today, I want to talk about door #4: Sri Lanka. Let me connect the dots in this strange political brew.

1. Hashan Tilakaratne has accused Sanath Jayasuriya and Aravinda de Silva of match-fixing.
2. Sanath Jayasuriya has been recalled to the ODI squad at the age of 41.9, only to announce that he will retire after the first game.
3. Upul Tharanga has been kept out of the team, after testing positive for banned substances.
4. Arjuna Ranatunga claims that the doctor who prescribed the banned substance to Tharanga is also the Sri Lankan president’s personal physician, Eliyantha White.
5. Eliyantha White’s medical credentials are “not known“.
6. Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, belongs to the United People’s Freedom Alliance.
7. Sanath Jayasuriya is a Member of Parliament from the same party.
8. Arjuna Ranatunga is a Member of Parliament from Democratic National Alliance.
9. Hashan Tilakaratne is a Member of Parliament from United National Party.
10. All three of them are in separate parliamentary alliances, as far as I can tell.