The announcement that former Test cricketer D. S. de Silva has been appointed as the Presidential Advisor to the Cricket Board created quite a lot of interest… and quite a stir!

Subsequently, ‘The Island’ reported on the letter de Silva wrote to Sri Lanka Cricket demanding a salary of Rs. 300,000 to function in this capacity along with several other perks with staff stationed at the board premises for him to carry out his duties.

We also mentioned that de Silva had asked for voting rights at Interim Committee meetings. With hindsight, we recall a history where the former leg-spinner had demanded material benefits for himself, at times, without sticking to protocol.

Controversies surrounding him began way back in 1982. When the team for Sri Lanka’s inaugural Test was announced, de Silva was playing league cricket in England, and he demanded more money than other players to represent the country. Senior cricketers in that inaugural side showed open displeasure at treating a single player differently… and Sri Lanka had an inauspicious start to Test cricket with this unseemly episode.

De Silva’s demand for more money to represent his country left a bitter taste in the mouths of many enthusiasts of the game. Sri Lanka had tried for years to gain Test status from the International Cricket Council. After all the hard work put in, it had paid off under the dynamism of Gamini Dissanayake, who was President of the then Board of Cricket Control of Sri Lanka, the last thing one wanted then is for an interloper to gatecrash demanding better payment than others. He seems to subscribe to the axiom of pares inter pares (first among equals). He was 40 at that time and indeed should have been happy to represent his country at that ripe old age without bringing money into the equation.

After the early distasteful episode, DS was lucky enough to captain Sri Lanka in two Test Matches during Sri Lanka’s tour of New Zealand in 1984 when Duleep Mendis and Roy Dias, the captain and the vice-captain respectively at that time, were injured.

He didn’t play Test cricket after Lord’s in 1984 and was forgotten for a long while before he was parachuted from nowhere for the Cricket World Cup in England in 1999. DS’s role when Sri Lanka was defending the World Cup was as a consultant and his involvement in the team was something that the players were blatantly displeased with.

Sri Lanka put up a dismal show during the tournament in 1999 and it is said that some of his high-handed acts created unpleasantness in the dressing room where he’s supposed to have undermined the role of the team management and destabilized the team’s morale.

How did DS end up there is an interesting question? The former spinner is married to a daughter of a prominent bookie in the Kandy region and his sudden involvement with the team certainly was a move to satisfy his bookie father-in-law.

Another bookie was heading Sri Lanka Cricket at that time and after one of his many aberrations was exposed, this time against this other bookie from Kandy, the cricket bookie had to compensate in some sort of way. The eventual compensation was by appointing DS a consultant. There you see yet another flagrant example of how some cricket chiefs have abused their powers.

So after eight years, DS has been brought in surreptiously from nowhere to set right the deficiencies in school cricket and one wonders whether he’s the ideal man for the job.

Having spent much of the time in the recent past in England, DS is unaware of what exactly is going on in the local cricket set-up and at age 65, with an open heart surgery thrown in for good measure, there is a lot of material facts going against him. When you have more competent people in this country to do the job… and a damned good job at that… what’s the point in bringing in old fossils into the cricket-related arena, where the game has undergone dramatic revolutionary changes at every level since the days DS played cricket and pay them fantastic salaries or allowance with other perks and privileges in tow.

Simply because he’s got the backing of a top politician, DS cannot expect the cricket board to dance to his tune. If he wishes to serve cricket as a true patriot, let him do so in an honorary capacity.

This appointment has opened a can of worms. Knowledgeable sportsmen and all lovers of Sri Lanka sports offer the obvious remedy to these ugly upheavals – detach all Sri Lanka sports from government control with each board of sport having an autonomous and independent board made up persons with unblemished record, both in public and personal life.