Kolkata: At the moment, things in Sri Lankan cricket seems to be headed in a wrong direction. First came their shocking series defeat against Zimbabwe, then Angelo Mathews stepped down from the captaincy of the team in all formats of the game and now, in an even worse incident, according to sources, some officials of the Sri Lankan cricket board asked the ground staff to take off their clothes before they receive their payments.
Sunday Times, a Sri Lankan website reports that after the fifth and final ODI against Zimbabwe, the ground staff were asked to return back the uniforms that had the SLC logo on it.
But the Sri Lankan cricket board was quick to apologise and also promised that the ones behind this entire thing would be strictly dealt with.
The board said, “Whilst stern action will be taken against those responsible, Sri Lanka Cricket wishes to apologise to those subjected to this ignominy, and will take steps to ensure they are compensated.”
To add to this, social media was flooded with the images of the temporary ground staff walking away in their underwear and this indeed took this issue to an all new low. The victims of this mistreatment was the local people who were contracted workers receiving a wage of 1,000 rupees ($6.50; £5) in exchange of working at the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Stadium in Hambantota.
After the 3-2 series defeat at the hands of Zimbabwe, who registered their first series victory in Sri Lanka, Angelo Mathews was deeply hurt by his team’s poor performance and described it as, “one of the lowest points in his career.”
He had also said that he would give it a thought as to whether to continue with his captaincy or not and on Tuesday, he stepped down from the helm of affairs.
However the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) was quick to name his replacements in the form of wicketkeeper batsman Dinesh Chandimal (the new Test captain) and Upul Tharanga, who would lead the team in the limited overs’ format.
After such an incident, one can say that they’ve hit the lowest of lows. This isn’t the first time such a thing has happened as some years back, there were reports that the officials and the team management had asked for sexual favours from the women cricketers if they had to make it to the team.