Ranatunga eyes changes and another World Cup

By N.Ananthanarayanan

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Wearing a neat suit and with his grey hair smartly combed back, Arjuna Ranatunga looks the part at a media promotion by Sri Lankan officials to draw Indian religious tourists to the island.

The firebrand ex-cricket captain, who led Sri Lanka to an upset World Cup win in 1996, takes the microphone to help publicise sites in his small nation steeped in Hindu mythology.

He is happy to switch to his favourite topic, however, as he reveals his plans for Sri Lankan cricket.

Ranatunga, 44, took over as Sri Lanka Cricket chairman this month on a three-year term and wants a second World Cup win, this time as an administrator, when the premier one-day event returns to the sub-continent in 2011.

Although Sri Lanka reached the final of last year's edition in the West Indies, Ranatunga feels junior cricket is in urgent need of revamping.

"My target is, how we can concentrate on the next World Cup, how we can win it," he said. "We want former cricketers to get involved and try and give ideas on that.

"We want them to get into umpiring, as curators, everything relevant to cricket."

He has already roped in Aravinda De Silva, Sri Lanka's finest batsman who scored a hundred in the 1996 final against Australia, as a batting expert for the under-19 squad.