By Asoka Seneviratne –
Asoka Seneviratne
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) is making a huge effort to turn our motherland around. A large component of his program is the so called “Clean Sri Lanka” program. This program is aimed at multiple goals, one of which is to modernize our public facilities such as public bus and rail stations, schools, toilet facilities, grounds, parks, roads etc. The list goes on.
Having said this, I would like to share a personal experience of mine related to the cricket board and cricket facilities for the spectators just before AKD came to power.
In November of 2024, me and my wife travelled to Kandy to watch Sri Lanka Vs New Zealand cricket game. This is just before the 2024 Presidential elections. As usual, Kandy town was total disgrace given that we are in the 21st century. Unbelievable traffic jams, broken roads and sidewalks that are blocked by pavement vendors, trash on streets, gigantic traffic mess around the lake round to add to all this there were no visible traffic police officers. To this end, drivers were getting off the vehicles and controlling traffic.
Our goal was to get to Pallekele cricket ground. While using Google maps, I could not see any large traffic sign pointing to Pallekele cricket ground. Keep in mind pallekele cricket ground is an international cricket stadium where highest quality world cricket is played with a large number of foreigners including world dignities come to watch cricket.
Having found out which road leads to Pallekele we were on our way. We passed several intersections and again there was no single road sign pointing to the cricket ground. We had to ask bystanders.
We bought tickets online. Per tickets we were supposed to go to section or gate -1 per my memory. I may be wrong with the section number as it has been a while. We approached gate that we thought was gate one. There were several guys with SL Cricket Board uniforms or appendages. None of them knew where our gate was. After driving around this massive ground, we arrived at our designated gate area. We could only travel to some sort of a entry point outside the stadium gate where you cannot drive past even though the gate was at least a quarter mile away. We begged the security officer who allowed us to drive to our gate.
Upon arriving at the gate, we were told we could not drive into the ground as it was only for designated cricket board members and similar. They told us to park somewhere far away from the gate. We turned around to find a parking spot that was not available anywhere close by. None was available. Finally, we paid thousand rupees to a guy who gave us his parking space.
So up to now, no signage to inform visitors that one must park far way and walk quarter mile or so to the gate. All it needed was a sign to say “no vehicles beyond this point”. Keep in mind that this is a 21st century international cricket ground.
Finally, we walked into stadium and sat down. We were looking for a beer vendor and there was only one vendor, meaning that they could fix any price. Why no other vendors is a big question, but the readers can decide on their own.
Now here comes the best part. At some point, I had to use the men’s room. Boy or boy, the rest room was tiny and a total disgrace. There were 3 or 4 urinals, 2 or 3 toilets and 2 or 3 sinks. The sink faucets were mostly broken. The lighting was very dim. No soap or hand towels. The worst was the urine stench. Once you walk inside, one must hold the nose and try to jump out as soon as possible. To add to this, the size of the rest room for such a massive stadium was so small that one had to hold the breath while waiting for a vacant urinal.
I watched almost everybody run out without washing hands (even with limited working sink faucets).
The entire seating area was filled with urine stench that many were covering their noses.
There were many foreigners likely from cricket loving countries. I could not help but think what kind of disgraceful memories they carry back home.
The entire experience of traveling to Kandy to watch a cricket game was horrible. The only ray of sunshine was that SL won the match.
Now here are my questions.
SL cricket board is loaded with money. Some of the board members are billionaires. Why on earth is the above-mentioned issues persist. It is not a money issue. It is an issue of bad vision of the cricket board members who seem not to care about spectators who also bring them a lot of revenue.
And what about the impression by foreigners about our country at large?
Some of the former sports ministers were highly connected to even to the former presidents. Why could he not fix this common sense issue?
It all boils down to one reason. They don’t care a damn. What else? They earn a lot of money, first-class free travels and hotels, so why worry about country, facilities, signage, rest rooms and most importantly the impression we give to tourists about our country.
What on earth was the mayor of Kandy doing while his town was a disgrace. He needs to come down to earth, see how ugly his historic tourist town is and do his job. Yes, our roads are insufficient. But some creativity can help
At minimum he can put a few traffic cops !
