Mangalore: Former Sri Lankan captain and Member of Parliament, Arjuna Ranatunga has urged the Asian cricket administrators to protect top cricketers in the controversial ICC contract issue.
"The administrators should pull up their socks and come to the rescue of cricketers in the issue, keeping their own interest away," Ranatunga who was here to attend a private function told reporters. The Indian cricket administrators should take the advice of top cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar, G R Vishwanath, B S Bedi and Dilip Vengsarkar, Ranatunga said. He also underlined the need of having persons from the cricket fraternity on the Board rather than business persons. Ranatunga who after retiring from cricket entered the political arena an year ago said, " I am completely out of figure in Sri Lankan cricket since I retired two years ago. However, I took the right decision to enter politics," he said. He said the Sri Lankan Board was fraught with problems and needs to be "revitalised". "All encouragement should be given to local umpires when other teams come to play on home tours," Ranatunga said. Referring to the forthcoming World Cup to be held in South Africa next year, the veteran cricketer said Australia stood a fair chance of winning it. "The Australian team has fair chances of winning the cup since they have a balanced team and have been playing well in some of the tournaments," he said. While the Indian team has the best batting line up, there is not enough backing in the bowling department in contrast to Sri Lanka which has the best bowling line up, Ranatunga said.
Extras:
Thorny issues threaten to tarnish 2003 World Cup
BCCI convenes meet to decide on ICC contract issue
Tags: cricket, mangalore, sri lanka, arjuna ranatunga, asia, icc contract, india, sunil gavaskar, g r vishwanath, b s bedi, dilip vengsarkar, world cup in south africa.
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