Former Sri Lanka fast bowler Pramodya Wickramasinghe will head a newly appointed six-member selection committee that will oversee selections for both the men's and women's cricket teams. Romesh Kaluwitharana, Hemantha Wickramaratne, Varuna Waragoda, Uvais Karnain and Thalika Gunaratne round out the panel.
There has been a vacuum in terms of team selection ever since Ashantha De Mel resigned as chief selector following Sri Lanka's home defeat by England last year. Following De Mel's departure the selection process had been undertaken by Wickramasinghe and Chaminda Mendis, with Wickramasinghe even accompanying the Sri Lanka team on their recent tour of the West Indies as the selector-on-tour.
Each of the six members of the new selection committee have been part of one previously, with Wickramasinghe and Wickramaratne carry-overs from the committee under De Mel. Former wicketkeeper-batsman Kaluwitharana was last a selector in 2016, while Waragoda, Karnain and Gunaratne - all former cricketers - have at various points been part of women's selection committees.
While the length of their term has not been specified yet, they will begin their duties with immediate effect. As such, their first task will be in picking a squad for the upcoming two-Test series against Bangladesh set to begin on April 21.
It is understood that the appointments were made by Sri Lanka's sports minister Namal Rajapaksa following consultation with SLC's sports ministry-appointed technical advisory committee, Sri Lanka's national sports council and the country's national sports selection committee.
None of these bodies incidentally overlook day-to-day affairs at SLC. That role is undertaken by a recently appointed management committee, which will do so up until the next board elections on May 20. SLC's previous Executive Committee had been removed, and the management committee installed, after Rajapaksa had ruled that they could not continue to run SLC beyond their mandated two-year term.