Following his meeting with Allardice, Sports Minister Harin Fernando posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the two had had a “constructive discussion and a way forward for the SLC.” Following that meeting, Allardice also met with President Wickremesinghe, with whom he is understood to have discussed possible changes to the SLC constitution.
Allardice will now report his findings to the ICC board, which will meet at the end of March, and is likely to have the issue of SLC membership on his agenda.
However, several days later, the ICC board suspended the SLC at the behest of SLC officials themselves, who at the time were in serious disagreements with then sports minister Ranasinghe. They had requested the suspension as a means to avoid further interference.
Now that that minister has been fired and there is now a minister acceptable to SLC, board members have been internally confident that SLC will be reinstated as a full member at the next board meeting.
This is the second trip to Sri Lanka by an ICC executive to discern the nature of the intersection of Sri Lankan politics with cricket. In mid-2023, ICC Vice President Imran Khwaja traveled to Sri Lanka to investigate possible government interference. On that occasion it is understood that Khwaja did not find immediate evidence to suspend the meeting.
