Sri Lanka Players Agree to Tour England Without Contracts, Report Suggests

Sri Lanka cricketers have agreed to tour England without contracts after the country’s cricket board agreed to bring transparency to players’ evaluation that eventually decides categories of contract. Sri Lanka cricketers had been complaining that the methodology used for calculating contracts was not transparent.

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Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), however, said it will reveal the details of how it evaluates players and issues them contracts.

“This is the transparency the players had been requesting from the outset. They will play this tour without signing any contract. They have signed a voluntary declaration, but there is nothing there about player remuneration. They have always been committed to playing for Sri Lanka,” Nishan Premathiratne, players’ lawyer, was quoted as saying by espncricinfo.com.

Last week, 38 Sri Lankan cricketers had refused to sign contracts as they complained about lack of transparency in the ratings system devised by SLC.

However, with the issue sorted now, the team will depart for England on June 9 as per schedule. Sri Lanka are scheduled to play the first of the three T20Is against England June 23. The three-match ODI series will begin on June 29. Besides, they are to play two tour matches, against Kent and Sussex.

However, De Silva, a former Sri Lanka captain, had earlier said the details of the new contracts were discussed thoroughly before being presented to the players and it rewards performances.

“We discussed this matter in depth before we presented it to the players. Unlike in the past, we have increased the benefits three-fold than what it was but purely on the team’s performance. If they win a Test series, we pay them USD 150,000 which was earlier limited to USD 50,000. It has to be a collective effort by the whole team,” de Silva told Daily News.

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He advised players to focus on winning matches instead of complaining about the contracts. “We also introduced a slab for the T20 format, which also runs up to a maximum of USD 50,000, which earlier didn’t have any rewards at all. The most important fact is that they should get into the middle and play positive cricket and start winning games for the country rather than complaining. This positive approach will encourage us to consider offering them more benefits, like some of the other countries in our region. If the team creates value, their incentives will also go up,” he said.

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