Foundation of Goodness, a charity founded by philanthropist Kushil Gunasekara and actively supported by ace spinner Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas, has done a lot to uplift the lives of tsunami victims in the southern coastal village of Seenigama. ‘The Island’ last Thursday (24) published an article which highlighted the rise to stardom of two young beneficiaries of the charity. It has already produced a player who has gone onto represent a Sri Lanka age group team. The charity of course at its infancy had to face a lot of hardships and former cricket chief Thilanga Sumathipala harboured a vendetta as the charity gained local and international publicity. In today’s ‘Outrageous Moments of Sri Lanka Cricket’ we look back at Sumathipala’s attempts to kill the charity at its infancy.

Shane Warne attracts publicity whether he’s bowling, batting, appealing, sledging, eating, gambling, talking or even when texting. So his visit to help tsunami victims in the island attracted a media frenzy. Murali is a huge cricketing ambassador and soon after the tsunami, many international cricket stars including Brian Lara, Andrew Flintoff and Shane Warne had pledged their support to help the victims of the disaster. When Warne asked Murali what he could do, the off-spinner requested the Australian star to come over to Colombo. Warne agreed to a hastily arranged trip, but made it clear that he didn’t want to be associated with evil elements of Sri Lanka Cricket.

Thilanga Sumathipala wasn’t the cricket board chief at that time, but SLC was headed by Mohan de Silva, a ‘puppet’ on Sumathipala’s hands. Warne’s arrival had attracted a lot of media attention and Sumathipala wanted to be involved in the high profile event.

Prior to Warne’s arrival, Sumathipala had established a charity called Cricket Aid and launched it with a live telecast spending millions of rupees. Sumathipala is a publicity maniac and tried every trick in the book to amalgamate Warne’s visit with Sri Lanka Cricket. But Warney opted to go private doing his charity work with Murali leaving Sumathipala high and dry.

And then Sumathipala started a series of attacks on the charity and intimidating the individuals involved. First, through his pet English daily which likes transparency, he carried a series of articles attacking the charity. He questioned whether the charity was registered. Claimed that Murali had no role with the charity and asked where the money was going. Overall, he was questioning the integrity and transparency of the charity.

Sumathipala questioning someone’s integrity and transparency was like Jack the Ripper delivering a speech on combating crime!

Subsequently, when this newspaper awakened Murali on Sumathipala’s comments that he had no role to play in the charity, Murali immediately denied having spoken to Sumathipala on matters pertaining to the charity. He went onto claim full responsibility for the activities of the charity.

Having failed in his entire attempt, on the day of the fund raising dinner, Sumathipala allegedly sent text messages to all contracted players of Sri Lanka Cricket and board employees not to participate in the dinner. His alleged threat was so strong, that even the God fearing Chaminda Vaas, a trustee of the charity refrained from attending the dinner. He probably knew that Sumathipala’s anger knew no end and no one wants to be on the wrong side of a man who has links with the underworld unless you are a newspaper reporter.

The dinner of course was a major success despite the absence of several leading dignitaries attached to Sri Lanka Cricket. Sumathipala eventually calmed down with egg on his face.

If not for a few individuals who had the guts to stand up to Sumathipala’s dirty tactics, Foundation of Goodness would have died at its infancy like Sumathipala’s many detractors. But it went from strength to strength and has become a tower of strength for several talented sportsmen from down south.