Senaka Weeraratna

The International Cricket Council (ICC) had direct exposure to the Player Referral concept during the tour of India to Sri Lanka in July 2008. During this time, the then-ICC General Manager of Cricket, David Richardson, physically visited Colombo and was 

handed over a Dossier of Documents on Player – Referral in Colombo by SLC officials and in person by Nishantha Ranatunga (SLC Secretary) in Dubai in June 2009 

This new evidence supported by newspaper reports published in 2009 including interviews with Nishantha Ranatunga (then SLC Secretary) demolishes the line of defense adopted by the ICC i.e., David Becker (2010) and Jonathan Hall ( 2023) that they were ignorant of Player – Referral (DRS) with deep roots in Sri Lanka. 

The International Cricket Council (ICC)‘s long-standing denial of prior knowledge regarding Sri Lanka’s Player Referral concept (the blueprint for the Decision Review System, or DRS) has been heavily undermined by documented handovers of the concept dossier directly to ICC leadership. [1, 2, 3, 4]

The Direct Evidentiary Trail

While the ICC’s internal legal teams historically argued that its committees conceived the system independently, overwhelming documentary evidence unearthed now proves that the ICC was physically handed the framework multiple times before its formal rollout: [1, 2]

• July 2008 (Colombo): A comprehensive dossier detailing the Player Referral system—originally conceived by Sri Lankan lawyer Senaka Weeraratna in 1997—was directly handed over to David Richardson (then ICC General Manager / later CEO) during an ICC visit to Colombo.
• June 2009 (Dubai): Nishantha Ranatunga, the CEO of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), officially presented the same concept documents to the ICC in Dubai, months before the ICC’s official worldwide rollout of the system in November 2009. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
• Saadi Thawfeek 

Sa’adi Thawfeeq is one of Sri Lanka’s most respected and authoritative cricket journalists. Over a career spanning several decades, his work has been widely published across major local and international platforms, including: [1]

• Daily FT (Financial Times Sri Lanka)
• Daily News
• ESPNcricinfo (as a long-standing Sri Lanka correspondent) [1]
• In his Column in the Sunday Nation (June 22, 2008) he published an extract of his Interview with Upali Dharmadasa ( former Sri Lanka Cricket Board Chairman).
• Notable Impact: One of the column’s most famous installments was an interview published on June 22, 2008. In it, the former Cricket Board President Upali Dharmadasa admitted to Thawfeeq that the Board had failed to officially table Sri Lankan lawyer Senaka Weeraratna’s groundbreaking 1997 proposal to the ICC. This specific column remains a key piece of evidence cited by historians confirming that the concept of cricket’s UDRS (Umpire Decision Review System) originally originated in Sri Lanka. [1]
• In another Column of the ‘Sunday Nation’ Newspaper published in 2009 a few weeks after the ICC Board Meeting held in Dubai in July 2009 under the caption ‘ UDRS – ICC must deal with subject of origin’ Thawfeek reports as follows:
• ” After much persuasion he (Weeraratna) managed to convince the local Board (SLC) to take up his case with the ICC. Sri Lanka Cricket Secretary Nishantha Ranatunga presented all relevant documents pertaining to the authorship to Richardson at the last ICC Chief Executive’s meeting in Dubai (July 2009) one and a half months ago in the presence of ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat. Richardson not only promised to study the submitted documents but was also supposed to get in touch with Weeraratna and SLC. So far nothing has transpired. Ranatunga, when contacted, stated that he would fire a reminder to Richardson wanting to know what progress has been made so far”. See the Attachment.
• The Context of the Incident in July 2008
• During the first Test match between Sri Lanka and India at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo, the International Cricket Council (ICC) was trialing a new concept called the “Player Referral System”. David Richardson, then serving as the ICC General Manager of Cricket, visited Sri Lanka to monitor these experimental trials. [1, 2, 3]
• Concurrently, Sri Lankan lawyer and advocate Senaka Weeraratna asserted that the core mechanics of this review system—specifically allowing a dissatisfied on-field player to directly appeal to the third umpire—was an innovation he originally conceived and published in 1997. [1, 2]
• The Canceled Meeting

According to local reports and documentation compiled by advocates of the claim:

• The Dossier Handover: Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) officials officially handed over a comprehensive dossier of documents to David Richardson. This file contained proof of Weeraratna’s prior work and publication regarding the Player Referral framework.
• The Scheduled Appointment: SLC successfully coordinated an official appointment for Senaka Weeraratna to meet face-to-face with Richardson the following day to formally discuss the authorship claim.
• The Departure: Instead of attending the arranged meeting, Richardson left the country that very night without meeting Weeraratna or providing an explanation to the author. [1, 2]

Subsequent Developments

The ICC ultimately maintained a formal stance via its legal team that the governing body developed the DRS independently and did not rely on Weeraratna’s conceptual framework. Despite continuous efforts by Weeraratna and subsequent sports administrators within Sri Lanka to gain international acknowledgment for the country, official credit was never adjusted by the ICC. [1, 2,

• The Core Controversy and the “Constructive Notice” Defense

The core dispute centers on the ICC’s refusal to grant moral or intellectual property recognition to Weeraratna. Legal analysts and Sri Lankan advocates argue that the ICC’s denial relies on deeply flawed legal advice: [1, 2, 3]

• The ICC Stance: The governing body claims it was unaware of Weeraratna’s 1997 newspaper publications (such as his letters in The Australian) and that publishing the idea openly waived his right to confidentiality.
• The Counter-Argument: Legal experts point out that the ICC completely overlooks the Doctrine of Constructive Notice. Because the concept was widely publicized in mainstream international media nine years before the ICC’s first UDRS draft in 2006, the council is legally presumed to have known about it.
• The Hardware vs. Concept Disparity: While technology firms make millions supplying physical tracking components (like Hawk-Eye), the actual rule dynamic—moving the power of appeal from the umpire to the player—came directly from the Sri Lankan legal mind. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Current Remedial Efforts

Due to the clear paper trail involving Richardson and Ranatunga, there is a growing institutional and diplomatic movement in Sri Lanka pushing for formal restitution. Advocates are lobbying Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to elevate this from a private dispute to an international intellectual property matter, urging the ICC to convene an independent commission of inquiry or take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to formally rename the framework the Weeraratna Decision Review System (WDRS). [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Conclusion:  The ICC has been deliberately misleading the world on origins of Player – Referral (DRS) when water tight evidence points in the opposite direction. 

Cricket followers !

  “Caveat Emptor” (let the buyer beware)

Senaka Weeraratna