Deadlocked
- Cricket contracts run into chaos after players refuse to sign any –central or tour until their demands are met
- 14 others joined initial 24 players to put pressure on cricket officials to change the ranking and scoring system
The dispute over national cricket contracts took a fresh turn yesterday with players standing firm on a refusal to sign any form of agreement–central or tour–until their demand for transparency is met.
Their decision came just three days before team’s scheduled departure to England for the six match limited-over series (3 ODIs and 3 T20Is). It now casts doubt over the series as Sri Lanka Cricket says players must at least sign a tour contract to go.
“We have not received anything officially from the players yet,” said Ashley de Silva CEO Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC). “But they need to sign at least the tour contract to go on the tour.” Players sent their letter yesterday.
Joining the 24 protestors are 14 others including Avishka Fernando, Roshen Silva and Nuwan Pardeep who were not considered for any form of contract despite performing well at national and international level during the period in consideration.
They are in unison demanding a revision of the overall scoring and ranking system which sees points being allocated on five attributes–performance, fitness, leadership, professionalism, and future potential and adaptability.
“Leadership, professionalism and future potential and adaptability are subjective matters. They want these subjective elements be removed and for points to be given only to performance and fitness as we have done in the past,” said Nishan Sydney Premathiratne, attorney-at-law representing all 38 players.
The performance during the last two years carries 50 points while 20 points are given for fitness. The other three attributes carry ten marks each. The allocation was done by the coach, the three selectors and the physical performance manager. The information is restricted to those involved in the grading process. But players unhappy about how they were slotted believe they have a right to know every detail of how their points were tabulated.
They argue that failure to disclose such information creates disharmony, raises reasonable concerns in respect of favouritism, and casts doubt as to the validity of the entire process. Their decision to reject any form of contract comes three days after discussions between cricket officials and players failed to bear fruit.
Members of the SLC Executive Committee headed by Shammi Silva and the Cricket Technical Advisory Committee headed by Aravinda de Silva held discussions virtually with player representatives on Thursday to reach a settlement over the ongoing dispute.
The meeting was also attended by chief selector Pramodya Wickremasinghe. Director Cricket Tom Moody, two captains Dimuth Karunaratne and Kusal Perera, vice-captain Kusal Mendis and Angelo Mathews. The players were subsequently given time till June 6.
“If the Board says they can’t pay us money since we are not signing tour contracts for the England tour, it’s fine. We will play. They need to understand, we are not demanding money but transparency. So until and unless our requests are given a fair hearing, we will not sign any contract with the Board,” said a concerned player.
When the new system was introduced last month, the Board was administered by a Management Committee appointed by the Minister of Sports. It is unclear whether Shammi Silva’s committee are on the same page with Cricket Technical Advisory Committee on this issue.
“We have put in place a system and we expect resistance to it,” said Aravinda de Silva “When you select a team, there are some who will think they should have been in the team. It’s a similar situation here. We cannot make everyone happy. We have introduced a system and it’s up to the players to sign it or not. If they don’t sign they will lose money. It’s totally up to them.”
Even though base salaries have been cut, these players could still gain more through the performance-based incentive scheme which sees a substantial increase in win bonuses in Tests and ODIs and also the introduction of win bonuses in T20 cricket.
Sri Lanka is currently ranked No. 8 in Tests and T20 cricket while they have been dropped to No. 9 in ODI cricket but players had refused to accept the entire blame for the current dismal state of cricket.