Sri Lanka Cricket has once again decided to impose discriminate measures on the country’s media, this time for the home tour by Zimbabwe starting next week.
Having forced the media to cover the England tour of Sri Lanka from the Galle Fort last year and then shutting the media centre and imposing ‘exclusive health requirements’ for subsequent tours, SLC has now decided to allow only vaccinated media personnel to cover the Zimbabwe series.
One media wag has already gone viral on social media branding SLC not only a stooge but also an entity that uses the media to highlight its “sunshine activities” by ordering its own puppet Media Section to bombard the outside media with ego-boosting Press releases and pictures of office-bearers at grandiose functions, and then damning the mainstream media when things go wrong.
When asked if media personnel can travel in crowded buses and trains (not in air conditioned SUVs) and work in their offices without being subjected to vaccinated mandates, what was wrong with them visiting a vastly roomy Press Box, an SLC official came out with the usual buck-passing answer.
“You are right but please don’t name me. Don’t you know we are following these so-called health guidelines,” he said.