Senaka Weeraratna

ICC (International Cricket Council) has been using the Decision Review System ( DRS) without the license of the Copyright Holder since 2006.

I am the copyright Holder. There are no other claimants in the world except Senaka Weeraratna of Sri Lanka.

It is a one-horse race but the inventor’s own country is not prepared to support the inventor before the ICC.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and the Minister of Sports have failed Sri Lanka by not challenging the ICC for the use of a Sri Lankan’s intellectual property without his consent and thereby depriving Sri Lanka of receiving the Royalties due for the use of the DRS, into the coffers of a Bankrupt country. 

This is tantamount to a Dereliction of Duty or Failure or Refusal to perform a Public Duty.  Both the SLC and the Minister of Sports are accountable for falling short of the performance of their duties. 

The unauthorized use of the DRS by the ICC, metaphorically speaking, is the equivalent of a highway robbery of someone’s property in broad daylight.

The ICC cannot disclose the name of an author(s) of DRS and they are not prepared to recognize a non-European as the author.

This is in short the raw truth. 

If the claimant for recognition had a name like say John Smith then the label would read like ‘ John Smith DRS ‘  –  It would have passed.

The ICC can get away with this ‘rope trick’ because of the slave minds of our cricket administrators, commentators, scribes, and more importantly our politicians

who are least worried about whether Sri Lanka gets recognition for DRS or not. Their conduct has been shameful and contrary to the spirit of cricket which has always stood for fair play and justice.

Mr. Sarath Abeysundera ( my friend from childhood days at school) made a statement calling for support as follows:

” This vexed problem of ‘ hora umpires’ and ‘ hora decisions’ remained unresolved in cricket until one of our ex-classmates came to the fore and gave a solution that turned cricket adjudication on its head. He challenged a fundamental premise of traditional cricket i.e., the umpire’s decision is final. This finality is no longer granted to an umpire’s decision largely due to the campaign of our ex-classmate who vehemently argued in the international arena that player dissent should be allowed for a noble cause i.e. to right a wrong. He used his legal training effectively to argue his case.

 UDRS has been hailed as the most revolutionary step taken to reform cricket rules since the inception of the game. A  Sri Lankan / old Royalist has conceived a concept i.e. player referral, which has brought fairness to umpiring decisions. It has been adopted by the ICC since October 1, 2009.

 We must commend this achievement. To stand together with Senaka Weeraratna though he has many more hurdles to clear before he gets final recognition from the ICC. At a personal level I have decided to back Senaka’s fight for due recognition which I am certain will bring recognition and glory to our country, school, and even the Royal College 1960 Group.”

I am appending the Legal Opinion of two leading lawyers Dr. Harsha Cabral, P.C., and Mr. Kushan Illangatilaka, Attorney-at-law, on the authorship of DRS. It is a four-page document. See the Attachments also. I have obtained the prior permission of Dr.  Harsha Cabral, P.C. to share this opinion with Lankaweb. 

Finally, I am appealing to the people of Sri Lanka and the cricket lovers of the world to support me in my sincere endeavour to see that Justice is done 

to my effort to resolve a long-standing problem in cricket adjudication and to my interest in seeing that due acknowledgment and accompanying tangible reward is given to my far sighted contribution to the game of cricket. 

Thank you.

Senaka Weeraratna

( Father of DRS)