Giving Suraj his due

by Rex Clementine

The first few Interim Committees that were appointed two decades ago were timely and catered to needs of those times. But subsequently, the Interim Committees became a tool for politicians to achieve their purposes. Former leg-spinner D.S. de Silva became the Chairman of the Cricket Interim Committee in the year 2009 in such a context. The press gave DS a hard time. It didn’t help and a few months into his term, newly appointed Sports Minister C.B. Ratnayake called the Cricket Board the third most corrupt institution in the country. The press went to town. Little did we realize that C.B. Ratnayake himself had packed the cricket board with kith and kin.

Given the picture painted by C.B. Ratnayake on the D.S. de Silva administration, the former captain’s every move was probed despite new highs for the national cricket team that included a first ever series win in Australia, reaching the finals of the T-20 World Cup at Lord’s and numerous bilateral series wins at home. Then, DS appointing two of his nephews – Suraj Dandeniya and Kapila Dandeniya for the World Cup organizing committee came in for criticism as well. But there are two sides to a story. Here’s that story. The untold story.

Both Suraj and Kapila had very good cricket pedigree. Suraj Dandeniya had represented S. Thomas’ College in the Royal-Thomian in 1976 and had gone onto play for SSC under Mr. Anura Tennekoon. Post cricket he had built up a successful business having started the Merc Shop that services and repairs European cars. He was heading the World Cup Organizing Committee. His cousin Kapila Dandeniya had represented Sri Lanka Under-19 and toured Australia under Aravinda de Silva’s captaincy.

Sri Lanka were supposed to hand over World Cup stadiums to the ICC by March 2010. However, there had been little progress made six months before the deadline to hand over the grounds. When ICC boss Haroon Lorgat rang up DS to express the governing body’s displeasure, Kapila and Suraj were in that room. DS was facing catch – 22. The nephews decided not to abandon their uncle and took it up as a challenge to complete the construction of the grounds.

One of the problems the press kept asking was why SLC did not want to play World Cup games at Dambulla and decided to build brand new stadiums. “We had to make sure that whatever the home games that were remaining in 2009 and 2010 went uninterrupted and we used Dambulla and even RPS for that purpose. We made a calculation that we would make a profit of US$ 24 million by hosting World Cup games. Our number of games increased due to Pakistan not able to host games. We ended up hosting a semi-final as well. We knew with the money we were getting, we could afford to build two new grounds,” Suraj opined.

There were allegations of not following tender procedures in constructing grounds. “We were running out of time. Pallekele Stadium, had we followed the tender process it would have taken one year. So we consulted the President’s office and we were told to give the undertaking to State Engineering Corporation to avoid all the trouble. That we did,” Suraj adds.

“We wouldn’t have completed these construction if not for State Engineering Corporation. They worked 24 hours, all seven days of the week, I must say.”

Suraj also revealed that SLC only paid for Pallekele and R. Premadasa Stadiums. The costs of Suriyawewa ground was taken up by the government. The Suriyawewa Stadium is a spacious venue built on a 47 acre land. Apparently the government had mooted ideas for other mega international sporting events as well apart from cricket.

“It was an enormous task. There were days I would get up at 4am in the morning and go to Suriyawewa. This was before the highway had come up and then travel up to Pallekele and conclude the day with an inspection of RPS. The construction of these stadiums should have started five years ago. We were left with an impossible task and we completed it. Had we failed, we would have regretted it for the rest of our lives. But the fact that we delivered gives me enormous amount of satisfaction,” says Suraj.

Why did Suraj not contest allegations of corruption in building stadiums at that point of time. “To be honest, we were running against the clock. We did not simply have the time to stop and counter all allegations. Obviously these were coming from disgruntled parties. From a very early moment we had decided that we were not going to deviate the focus from the job at hand. We knew it was a massive task,” explains Suraj.

What about stories that SLC went bankrupt after the World Cup. “We left SLC soon after the World Cup. We didn’t have time to counter these claims. But the fact of the matter is there were two audits conducted one of them by the Auditor General and we were given all clear. That’s what matters at the end. We are not crooks. We care for the game deeply. We wouldn’t do anything to harm the sport that we love so dearly.”

The construction of the stadiums weren’t without challenges. Apparently the ICC rejected Suriyawewa and RPS grounds 48 hours before the tournament got underway. There were concerns of safety of players and spectators, an area the ICC is very particular about. Immediately, SLC bigwigs headed to Temple Trees to break the news to President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The President took steps to dispatch Road Development Authority to the two grounds. Within the next 24 hours, the RDA ensured that ICC’s requirements were met.

“I remember taking Chirs Tetley, the Head of ICC Events in a helicopter to Suriyawewa and he told me that I am taking him to a different ground. It was truly remarkable what the RDA did to address ICC concerns,” Suraj recalls.

“The press was giving us such a torrid time. We didn’t get rattled. I don’t see the pressure that was put on us being put on the Pollonaruwa ground project that was started and no one knows what is happening to it now.”

“My biggest satisfaction is to see games being played in these three beautiful grounds. I take enormous pride that I contributed for these projects. I must tell you that we had a brilliant team. It was a superb team effort. Every single guy burned the mid night oil to see through this. We did it in ten months. As a result we have three beautiful stadiums, Sri Lanka were able to host the 2012 T-20 World Cup. We can also host future ICC events without any hassle,” Suraj goes onto say.

Suraj and the team deserves credit no doubt. Having toured other cricket venues that were built for the 2011 World Cup like Eden Gardens in Calcutta, Wankhede in Bombay, Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi and Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, you can vouch that the three Sri Lankan venues are architect marvels. Pallekele and RPS in particularly can cater to 400 journalists, a capacity that no other cricket ground in the world is capable of; not Lord’s, not MCG, not Newlands, not Eden Gardens.