On 25 January 1990, Sri Lanka's Deputy Defence Minister, Ranjan Wijeratne declared in Sri Lanka's Parliament:
"You cannot do things under normal law. It takes a lot of time. By the time my good friends who are lawyers take time to solve these things, the match will be over. We have finished the first eleven and the second eleven. Now we are tackling the under fourteen fellows." (Sri Lanka Hansard, Volume 62, Column 1249, proceedings of 25 January 1990)