Aravinda unhappy with SLC’s preference for white-ball cricket over red-ball

• Reviews Technical Advisory Committee’s 10 months in office
• New player contracts coming up next month

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Former Sri Lanka captain and present chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee Aravinda de Silva has expressed his displeasure over Sri Lanka Cricket’s (SLC) preference for white-ball cricket over the red-ball.

“We told them that they must play the three-day club tournament, which is very important, but they initially came back and said that they wanted to play the LPL (Lanka Premier League) and that they won’t have the time to play it,” De Silva told Daily FT.

“We have about eight to ten Test matches next year so we need to play the longer formats, because the cricketers haven’t had much cricket at all. But for Sri Lanka Cricket the priority is the LPL. We have been saying that they have to try and play this three-day game to make sure that selections are done for the Super League four-day tournament. We wanted to make sure the tournament happened because without it the players haven’t got any cricket at all in the last one and a half years or so,” De Silva continued.

“Then we said the worst-case scenario was to play at least a two-day tournament. You can’t select players for a four-day tournament from the one-day or the LPL. Then they said that the two-day tournament does not have first-class status and the clubs don’t want to play it. Their priorities are more towards the LPL, but before that we needed to make sure that we played this four-day tournament and three-day longer version considering the fact that there are so many players who have missed out on a lot of cricket. Eventually they decided they would play only the clubs 50-over and the LPL,” he said.

SLC concluded the Major inter-club Limited Over tournament last week, while the LPL began at the R. Premadasa Stadium yesterday.

Explaining what the role of the Technical Advisory Committee is, De Silva said: “We don’t have any authority to do anything, we can only give suggestions. For the last so many months we were giving certain recommendations on implementing the domestic tournament and also the other structures. We are not involved on a day-to-day basis of running the cricket. SLC makes all the final decisions.”

The four-member Technical Advisory Committee, comprising former Sri Lanka Test cricketers De Silva, Roshan Mahanama, Muttiah Muralitharan and Kumar Sangakkara, was appointed on 5 February by Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa to advise him, the Ministry officials and National Sports Council on all matters related to SLC. The committee is expected to work closely with SLC in order to uplift standards of domestic and international cricket in Sri Lanka and to achieve a sustainable high standard in cricket.

Looking back on the 10 months they have been operative, De Silva said: “At the start it was a lot better, we managed to change and put something in place. Once people start to forget things, that’s what we need to avoid. We are starting to do well and if they go back to the old habits again, I see a bit of disaster happening. You have to be very careful in whatever we do, we need to have consistency and also continuity.

“We see some sort of improvements have taken place. We should not get back to old habits. You can’t change things overnight but gradual change. If you do certain things you need to keep improving on them not to go back. Mahela (Jayawardene) has also pointed out, that when we take one step forward, we take five steps back. If that continues to be the case, then there’s no point in wasting anyone’s time.”

Player contracts

Speaking on the controversial performance-based player contract that will once again come up for renewal in January next year, De Silva said: “The players are selected by the selectors. Basically, everyone signed the contract last year. If they had an issue they would not have. The last time the selectors said that they had to go by 50% for performance and had to add other criteria like future prospects where they should have given a lesser percentage, but had to give a higher percentage mainly because for the year the players hadn’t played much cricket. That policy was decided by the selectors.

“If you give 50% for performance and 20% for fitness, there is 70 percent always covered. Then seniority 5-10% which makes it 80%. The other remaining percentages are for communication, leadership skill, future adaptability and future prospects. You have to consider all that when you are handing the contract. Those criteria we have put in, as we go on if there is a huge issue we can evaluate and improve on that.

“Earlier contracts were given just by looking at the face of the player, that is why we brought this new concept. If the contract requires any changes, you can change the percentage or whatever. At least that was the base to work on and we can better it for the future. These are our suggestions. If SLC likes it, they will implement it otherwise they will shelve it.  

“We want the players to have a free mind and clear their path and focus only on cricket. If they keep performing and doing their job its fine but if you start crossing boundaries with administrators getting too involved with the players and vice versa, then it becomes a problem. You need to allow the cricket coaches, administrators and players to do their jobs properly and independently without any sort of favouritism. If that happens, we can see some sort of success.”