A Major Club Youth Under-23 cricket match in progress 

• SLC receives green light to complete Youth Under-23 tournament

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Domestic cricket will be back on track when the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) Tournament Committee resumes the stalled Major Club Youth Under-23 semi-finals and final later this month.

“We are going to start and finish the two Under-23 semi-finals and final. We are playing the two semi-finals on 26 February and the final on 28 February. SSC will play Badureliya CC at NCC and Colts will meet Lanka CC at the P. Sara Oval in the two semi-finals on 26 February,” said SLC Tournament Committee Chairman Bandula Dissanayake.

The final will take place at the SSC on 28 February.

“The matches will be played under strict Health Ministry guidelines. We had a meeting last Wednesday with Health Ministry officials and verbally the ‘okay’ was given. We are waiting for them to give us the health guidelines in writing for the matches. We must do the PCR tests and then random tests in between. The clubs have already started practices over a month ago,” said Dissanayake.

The semi-finals and final was earlier scheduled to be played on 27 and 29 October, but due to a growing spread of COVID-19 it was postponed for a second time.

When it was pointed out that some of the players could be over the age limit as more than three months had elapsed since the tournament was scheduled to be complete, Dissanayake said: “We will stick to the original registration and allow them to play”.   

Consequent to the completion of the Under-23 tournament, Dissanayake said that the Tournament Committee has plans to commence the Major Club T20 tournament that was postponed from October-November of last year in addition to other tournaments as well.

“We will be starting the Major Club T20 tournament in the first week of March. We are working on the schedule at the moment,” said Dissanayake.

“Further, we are also planning to commence the Major Club Limited-Over tournament (50 overs) shortly probably from late March. We want to first schedule the Major Club T20 matches and then work towards the Major Club Limited-Over. Avoiding the peak time, we have to give the clubs time to prepare as well,” he said.

The Major Club Limited-Over Tournament was initially scheduled to be held in December-January.