One of the teething problems that Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has failed to address is the influx of national cricketers frequently going and playing franchise cricket around the world at the cost of national interest.
This has resulted in players picked for a certain tour arriving straight from playing franchise cricket instead of being part of the tour squad and undergoing training as one unit. It has also resulted in the question of fitness of such players and subsequently the injuries they suffer, which is detrimental to the national team’s interest.
‘We felt that at one stage playing for Sri Lanka is like getting your foot into different franchises,’ said SLC Transformation Committee member Sidath Wettimuny.
‘We want to change that perception and we are going to bring about a rule where we will say 10 days before a national tour you’ve got to be with the squad back home. Plus, we are going to restrict franchise cricket to a maximum of three which includes the LPL (Lanka Premier League). Depending on the fitness etc. a cricketer can play in two more franchises if SLC gives an NOC (No Objection Certificate) to play.’
‘For example, for the recent England tour, four of our players came from the West Indies, two days before the tour commenced. We are going to stop that. We are going to restrict the players to the 8 main franchises. The players’ contracts end shortly this year in their new contracts. We’ll make sure that regulation is there. We want to rationalize the whole process for the players to make sure that Sri Lanka cricket is the priority. Playing franchise cricket is well and good but their priority must be to represent the country.’
Transformation Committee chairman Eran Wickramaratne addressing the media at their monthly meeting said that there was no issue with the ICC funding of SLC although at present, it is run by a government appointed body.
‘We have the support of the ICC in what we are doing. They can see that we are in the process of putting good governance in place. The ICC has its own regulations and how they administer it. The funds are coming, the methods have changed,’ said Wickramaratne.
‘What we are focusing on as a committee is not only on receiving funds, we are very focused on how the funds are being spent. That’s very critical and important. We are focused on what our priorities are in spending those funds?
‘We are very much focused on waste management and basically saving every single rupee so that it can be put into school cricket, to women’s cricket and cricket in general. We are focused on having pre-evaluation particularly when it comes to capital expenditure. I don’t like saying this, but just to illustrate the point we have floodlights here (at the SSC). These floodlights have cost us more than Rs. 1.7 billion. Since the installation of these floodlights only one match has been played. When we get into capital expenditure we will do very careful evaluation in terms of financial returns. We are there to play cricket, but we are there to play cricket intelligently.’
Wickramaratne also revealed that they have begun a reserve fund for SLC from this month.
On the question of at which stage the new SLC constitution stood at the present moment, Wickramaratne replied, ‘The Supreme Court will most likely provide its verdict and conclusion this week. Then it will be tabled in Parliament the following week. After that, a debate could be called in Parliament for a second reading of the bill and a vote could be taken. We think that process should be concluded approximately a month from now. But certainly this year we will see the new constitution become law on SLC. After that it will take several weeks to implement it because there are elected officials and appointed officials that have to go through a process.’
Transformation Committee member Roshan Mahanama appearing for the first time at a media conference said, ‘If anyone wants to be an elite athlete you cannot compromise on discipline and fitness.’
Speaking on a few key areas that the committee has started to develop Mahanama named, match officiating from grass root levels, a curator with a good background, appointment of coaches, restructuring of the entire High Performance Centre (HPC), a brain centre where ‘we are about 10 years behind other countries’, bringing in a cricket season which is important for workload management, injury recovery, technical challenges, an accreditation policy for player-managers, a women’s protection policy, a child safe-guarding and a child protection policy ”as we have under 17 boys and under 19 girls (some of them are 15 years)’.