Sri Lankan Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera stopped nine players before leaving for India on Tuesday who were coming to India for taking part in the upcoming ODI because he was unhappy with the team choice.
as per the sources of AFP, the nine cricketers were about to leave Sri Lanka at the Colombo airport late Monday for the overnight flight when they were ordered to return. The rest of the squad are already in India taking part in the ongoing Test series. Sri Lankan cricket is in turmoil and the national squad has lost 21 ODIs in 2017 and won just four.
Sports Ministry sources said Jayasekera was enraged that the cricketers have been cleared to leave before he had given formal approval to the team selection. A 1973 law gives Jayasejera the power to change national squads before they compete.
The ministry sources said the sports minister may order at least two changes to the squad named by the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) board. The nine players stopped from leaving were led by skipper Thisara Perera who was only named last week.
The other eight are Upul Tharanga, Danushka Gunathilaka, Asela Gunaratne, Chathuranga de Silva, Sachith Pathirana, Dushmantha Chameera, Suranga Lakmal and Nuwan Pradeep.
