Politics will never curtail spirit of game: Sangakkara

Apr 01, 2013 |

Hyderabad

Tags:

Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper Kumar Sangakkara feels keeping the Sri Lankan players out of the Chennai matches in the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League is not going to “curtail” the spirit of the game.

Bowing to intense political pressure, the IPL governing council last week withdrew top Sri Lankan players from all the Chennai matches of the high-profile IPL after Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa refused to host them in view of the prevailing anti-Sinhalese sentiments in the state.

“Politics in this case has affected/restricted our presence, our belief to play in every part of India. But I don’t think, sports and spirit of cricket is ever going to be curtailed by such prejudice,” he said on the sidelines of an event here.

The Lankan great was reacting to a query if politics has affected the participation of Sri Lankan players in Chennai. “The buildup has been different and difficult for Sri Lankan players. But at the end of the day they are here to play IPL. The Sri Lankan Cricket Board has made it clear that no Sri Lankan players will be (playing) in Chennai,” Sangakkara said.

He pointed out that “India is much more than Chennai and Tamil Nadu and I think the rest of India has been very welcoming of us”. “We are here to play cricket representing Sri Lanka and also on behalf of our franchisee.”

Reacting to another query, over former captain Arjuna Ranatunga’s comment asking the Sri Lankan players to opt out of the tournament over the matter, Sangakkara said, “It’s been a divisive issue back home as well. But this is not a nation-vs-nation issue. “It’s only a state... And I don’t think it is the entire state (Tamil Nadu). So, we got to put it in right perspective.”

He further said, “Foreign policies are not going to be dictated by that and had it been a nation-vs-nation issue then Sri Lankan players would not have been here.”

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/228110" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-6e054ddb31d13085c10d1d7a44527aeb" value="form-6e054ddb31d13085c10d1d7a44527aeb" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85629851" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>