By Srian Obeyesekere

Sri Lanka Cricket’s Acting Secretary, Chryshantha Kapuwatte lauded Nippon Paints Lanka (Pvt) Ltd., for coming forward as the title sponsor of the ongoing Zimbabwe tour of Sri Lanka as well as other sponsors.

“We are gathered here today to recognise our main sponsor of the tour of Zimbabwe Nippon Paints Lanka (Pvt) Ltd., and other sponsors, and on behalf of the President of SLC and its executive committee I thank all of them while extending a warm welcome to Mr. Nemantha Abeysinghe, the General Manager of Nippon Paints Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. SLC conveys our sincere greetings to all our sponsors and their hierarchies and the greater success of their business dealings by tying hands with Sri Lanka Cricket. “

He singled out the main sponsor when he said, “Nippon Paints is a well established household name and we can look forward to it to paint all our stadiums and make them a beautiful place for our spectators to visit.”

He also made special mention of Dialog. “Dialog is no stranger to Sri Lanka cricket and we sinerely look forward to work with Dialog.

He also singled out ITW as a potential entity in global advertising while going on to observe that BOT Technology, a Singapore based company was a big time giant in the arena and he liked to see more such entities getting involved with SLC. It was in fact a golden opportunity for sub companies to take their products to the global market.

He emphasized that Sri Lanka’s two-way financial earning resources was the ICC and local sponsorships as well as other advertising projects.

“Every dollar to SLC is utilized in a very transparent manner and methodically used for the furtherance of the country’s cricket activities. I must make special mention of SLCs magnanimous financial assistance outside cricket for worthy human causes like Apeksha Hospital, the Lady Ridgeway Children’s Hospital especially during the country’s hard pressed economic times and the COVID 19 while also supporting other sports like motor racing, athletics, rugby football<” Kapuwatte pointed out.

ICC IS STILL WATCHING

Referring to the suspension of SLC membership from the ICC on the grounds of government interference, he noted that it had triggered bad consequences. “Today, the SLC President can’t sit together with other members of the ICC, but has to sit out as a mere observer. But we are hopeful that things will get back to normal with the incumbent sports minister having had a one to one discussion with the ICC hierarchy on relaxing the suspension,” he observed while going on to add, “However, the ICC will not be drawn to it so quickly. They are still watching the happenings here as to whether there is any interference while also waiting to see what the new sports act spells out.”