World Cup: Will truth win or lose?

In Sri Lanka the truth must be the first casualty. It happened during the war and now in cricket -- the World Cup to be precise and at a time the country is trying to showcase itself to the world as a sporting spot on the globe, after the end of decades of war.

By the time these lines are read Sri Lankans may know what would have become of the fiasco or some may argue, the pompous shots surrounding the construction of the World Cup venue at Sooriyawewa in the Hambantota district. This had been put under a cloud of uncertainty as to whether it would be opened as the latest international cricket venue in the world.

Are we to believe that what is happening now, or happened, was far from the truth which has taken a beating. At the time of writing even the experts had little or no idea whether it will actually be ready for next Sunday’s World Cup opener between Sri Lanka and Canada as the International Cricket Council stood directly caught up in the impasse unable to make a ruling for nearly three months other than wait and watch one of its members live on borrowed time.

After all one is left to wonder why the ICC was pussyfooting on the matter and creating more uncertainty when a few weeks ago it declared that the world’s largest and cricket’s most inseparable venue, the Eden Gardens in Kolkatta was unfit to host the high profile game between England and India.

The saga that led to the impasse over the Sooriyawewa venue, brought out two characters into focus, one a group of decision makers from the ICC and the other the Sri Lankan Tournament Director of the World Cup Suraj Dandeniya who unfortunately could not live up to his pompous boast that he was ten days ahead of schedule.

In an interview with the Daily Mirror last September, Mr. Dandeniya boasted he was “10 days ahead of schedule”, referring to a November 30 deadline. With all the deadlines and extensions missed and the truth strangled for almost three months, the country was put into a wait-and-see situation for that historic date of February 20 to know the exact truth.

The ICC like Mr. Dandeniya must also be put in the dock on the question of whether it gave into the whims and fancies of Sri Lanka which is well known the world over to give its foreign visitors treatment that is “out of this world” even at the cost of its own people. A year ago two ICC officials, one a pitch expert, in a media briefing in Sri Lanka almost put the seal of endorsement on Sooriyawewa. If the February 20 match does not get off the ground, the ICC’s double game of telling the Colombo media one thing and submitting another in London, and Mr. Dandeniya’s grandiose rhetoric of stadium building, would be on midfield for all to see.

For this is the only way truth can have a place in what some people call a “Resplendent Isle”. Or will both the ICC and Mr. Dandeniya win the match after all?