SLC looks to prop up provincial cricket

Sri Lanka Cricket is placing a renewed focus on provincial cricket as part of broader plans to revamp the country’s ailing domestic cricket structure. 

The new format, which will see the first-class season climax with a four-team Super Provincial Tournament, will see 60 of the best players in the country vying for supremacy. The Premier League inter-club season though will remain unchanged.

While a four-team provincial limited overs tournament is already in place in the domestic cricket calendar, the expanded structure will see teams play a four-day pink ball cricket tournament - with at least one game under lights per team - a 50-over tournament, and finally a T20 tournament. 

Scheduled to start in the first week of December, each provincial tournament will also be preceded by its inter-club counterpart - with three-day matches in place of four-day fixtures.

District teams, meanwhile, will compete in provincial tournaments to supplement the four Super Provincial squads, which will be based around Centres of Excellence in Colombo, Kandy, Galle and Dambulla. The idea is to bring together the finest talent from each province and offer a clear pathway to the national side.

Furthermore, SLC will also be subsiding its 24 first-class clubs up to Rs. 1 million each for friendly matches prior to the start of the Premier League Tournament. The hope is that this will allow more clubs to blood in promising young talents.

“Before Premier Tournaments, clubs would usually play friendly matches on their own at their own expense. This year SLC has taken that into account and has given them the opportunity to play some friendly matches where SLC will be paying a substantial amount to the clubs for preparation for this tournament,” said Tournament Committee Chairman Bandula Dissanayaka.

“This is something new where clubs will have an opportunity to test out their young players, who have not played tournament cricket before. And if they’re suitable enough, maybe absorb them into the premier sides.”

Sri Lanka Cricket also tweaked the lower divisions, though not as radically. Division 3 and Division 2 fixtures will now be organised by district and provincial cricket associations respectively. Division 2 matches, meanwhile, will now be intra-provincial matches, where district clubs will compete to become provincial champions.

Some of the tournament’s details however may be subject to change, with a cricket committee appointed by Sri Lanka’s Sports Ministry expected to offer their input in the lead-up. SLC were unable to reveal what exactly those changes might be, but did say that they were expecting to hear from the Sports Ministry soon.

One area they could possibly provide guidance with would be in deciding which provinces certain district clubs would fall under. At present players are grouped into the four teams based on their place of birth, school attended and current place of work. In previous iterations, this meant provincial teams struggled to name strong enough teams, in turn leading to players from other provinces being parachuted in.

Any changes though would have to be run by relevant stakeholders - in this case the clubs - prior to implementation, noted the SLC.