Jayantha Dharmadasa was named as the head of country's Cricket Interim Committee for a third successive year by Minister of Sports Gamini Lokuge on Friday. Dharmadasa was initially brought in as cricket chief in 2005. The newcomers to the cricket interim committee are former Test star Sidat Wettimuny, Boxing Federation chief Dian Gomes, cricket commentator Premasara Epasinghe and Lalith Wickramasinghe.

Along with Dharmadasa, K. Mathivanan and Sujeeva Rajapakse have been retained in the interim committee.

"I thought there needed to be a change in the Cricket Interim Committee. Sidat Wettimuny was one of our cricket heroes during the formative years in the Test arena. He has exhibited great skills as a cricket administrator over the years. A lot of people in the cricket fraternity felt that we needed to make use of his services," Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge told ‘The Island' .

Wettimuny, a former cricket selector and a member of previous interim committees, is the President of the Sri Lanka Cricketers' Association.

"Dian Gomes is a person with a proven track record. He has taken a lot trouble to uplift boxing and we want to utilise his services in cricket as well," Lokuge added.

The relatively unknown figure in the new committee is Lalith Wickramasinghe, a former Director of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation.

Damian Fernando, a controversial member of the previous interim committee and the brother-in-law of former Sports Minister Jeevan Kumaratunga, was left out, together with Prakash Schafter, an up and coming administrator. (Rex)