Key Tamil official in Sri Lanka cricket to be sidelined

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 March 2008, 13:31 GMT]
A top Tamil official in Sri Lanka cricket, Velummylum Mathivanan, Secretary of the interim committee of Sri Lanka Cricket, has been "sidelined from his functions, and it s feared that he could be ousted from the job by the interim committee head Arjuna Ranatunga," Daily Mirror, a Colombo-based daily reported Monday.

"Mathivanan has also being gagged from making statements to the Press which makes his case unprecedented wherein a secretary of an international organisation has been told to stay away from the media," the paper said.

The paper praised Mathivanan as "a genuine promoter of the game and players, and seeks nothing in return," and added that he was always ready to "clarify issues with the media and his ouster could only spell doom for the game’s administration in the country [Sri Lanka]."

Mathivanan is an old boy of Hartley College, Point Pedro, and rose to become a top-rate business person in Colombo, becoming the owner of East-West Marketing (Private) Limited, traders in consumer items.