Amended player contracts to go through Technical Committee

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is to get the views of the Technical Committee, headed by former SL Captain Aravinda de Silva, on the amended player contracts before getting the national cricketers’ signatures on it.

“We have made some amendments to the contracts and now that the Technical Committee has been appointed, we didn’t want to sign it until we run it through them. We want to get their inputs also before we take it forward from there,” said SLC CEO Ashley de Silva.

“The Technical Committee overlooks the cricketing areas and all cricketing matters, and we would be advised by them. They will go through the amendments and payments for what we have done, and they will also give us some recommendations, which we will have to discuss with the team members after they return from the West Indies,” continued de Silva.

“We have taken everything into consideration and done three to four scenarios, which we will share with the Technical Committee before we finalise the contract,” he said.

Following national cricketer Kusal Mendis’s involvement in a fatal motor accident in Panadura in July last year, SLC said that they would take steps to include a Players’ Code of Ethics to the individual contracts.

“There are a lot of areas covered, but there are some more areas to be covered, so we would be including that as well in the agreement,” de Silva said at the time.

“We haven’t still shared it with the Technical Committee because we are reviewing certain things with our internal lawyers. We would share it with them by next week or two. After that, we will discuss further with them and take it to the players,” he said. The original contract expired in November last year and SLC extended it by two months till the end of January because the team was going to South Africa and then was to play the home series against England. The players were expected to sign their annual contracts before travelling to the West Indies, but with the appointment of the Technical Committee by the Sports Minister, there has been a delay in the contracts getting finalised.

“For the West Indies tour, they signed a tour contract. Hopefully, the players will be signing their annual contracts before the Bangladesh series at home. Last year, we had about 35 players contracted for international cricket,” said de Silva.

The two-Test series against Bangladesh is due to commence in the middle of April and will most likely be held in Pallekele.