COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa scrapped plans Thursday for a $40 million cricket stadium following criticism from several former greats.
Sri Lanka’s information and higher education minister Bandula Gunawardana had proposed the controversial stadium, which was to be built in his local constituency.
Sri Lanka Cricket had confirmed it was the government which had promised to “allocate” the 26 acres the stadium was supposed to be built on, and without this grant, and particularly without governmental support, the project is essentially dead.
Several former cricketers – particularly former captain Mahela Jayawardene and ex-ICC match-referee Roshan Mahanama – had expressed criticism of the stadium proposal.
Jayawardene and Mahanama, along with Kumar Sangakkara, Lasith Malinga and Sanath Jayasuriya, were all present at a high-level government meeting on Thursday, before the decision to suspend the stadium’s construction was announced, ESPNcricinfo reports.
“It was decided at a meeting with former top players today (Friday) that instead of the proposed Homagama stadium it was better to spend money on building school cricket,” Rajapaksa’s office said in a statement.
Colombo already has one floodlit international stadium at Khettarama (the R Premadasa stadium), where the majority of the city’s limited-overs cricket is played. Earlier in the week, an SLC offical had said that Sri Lanka required a fifth major limited-overs stadium (in addition to grounds in Hambantota, Pallekele, Dambulla and Khettarama) in order to make successful bids for forthcoming World Cups and ICC events.
