Winds of Change for local cricket

By S.R. Pathiravithana

Sri Lanka’s former master batsman Aravinda de Silva is back in the fold and heads the SLC Cricket Committee.

After a long await it looks like the domestic cricket structure is going to be revamped from the 2009 season.

At present the SLC Cricket Committee comprising Aravinda de Silva, Sidath Wettimuny, Roshan Mahanama, Ranjan Madugalle, Bandula Warnapura, Duleep Mendis, Michael Tissera, Graeme Labrooy and H. Premasiri are working out the logistics of the new format.

According to a senior member of the SLC as expected the Provincial Cricket Tournament will become the premier Tournament in the country and a District Cricket Tournament will act as the feeder point to that.

The provincial Cricket tournament will be the only tournament which will be played for the duration of four days.

The club cricket structure which played the major role for over the past half a century will not be scrapped, but, will continue at a lower scale and may be confined only to a two day affair. The need for such a move became very apparent; when the standard of local club cricket scaled down so badly that it became very evident that there was a huge gap between international cricket standards and the local domestic cricket standards. At present Sri Lanka is only major cricket playing country which has a club oriented cricket structure as its premier tournament.