SLC-player contract saga: Spare a thought for the poor cricketers

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

The high-handed manner in which the stand-off between Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and the players was resolved has only compounded complications the country’s cricket is facing today.

There was a provisional truce reached prior to the English tour between the two parties to amicably settle the disagreements with transparency and goodwill. However, what has transpired since the team’s arrival is quite in contrast to what has unfolded.

After engineering several sinister manoeuvres to destroy the unity among the players, SLC has now taken the upper hand and refused to offer the cricketers central contracts for the year 2021.

This leaves the current batch of cricketer’s without a steady income to focus on their training and engagements in cricket. They will be entitled to only their tour fees and match fees, which is grossly unfair by any yardstick. This naturally is not the most sensible approach taken by the collective administrations of SLC and the Technical and Advisory Committee.

The administrators ought to understand that the role of an administrator is to facilitate and foster an enabling environment for the cricketers (or the players in other sports). What appears to be happening is that the administrators are behaving as if the sport is played for their benefit? It simply is not so, and it cannot be so, as the only reason why administrators volunteer their services in an honorary capacity is to serve the sport and the sportsmen and women.

These columns have already highlighted the expenditure that is incurred in maintaining these administrators whilst throwing crumbs at the sportsmen and women. The situation that has arisen at SLC is a classic case in point.

They have decimated team spirit and unity in the manner they have reportedly extracted the signatures of the players. Several senior players have already started making plans to either retire or migrate.

This is an extremely unfortunate situation as senior players have a major contribution to make for the long term sustenance of cricket in Sri Lanka.

From information trickling out, SLC has literally fooled Dasun Shanaka into signing the contract on the promise of appointing him captain. This has completely undermined the united stance the cricketers were taking previously. What this has also done is made a player from SSC the captain on top of the chairman of selectors also conveniently being from SSC. These columns predicted such a scenario when the Minister was dragging his feet over the appointment of the National Selection Committee where even the recommendations made by the National Selection Committee headed by Gen. Shavendra Silva was totally disregarded on the advice of the National Sports Council and the Technical and Advisory Committee.

As the famous adage goes, history repeats itself. What we have today is a parallel to what transpired in 2013 yet again over disagreements with the contracts. Back then it was Nishantha Ranatunga and Dinesh Chandimal who were the main actors in the drama. The senior players back then were infuriated with what happened and made life untenable for Chandimal. So much so that he was forced to sit out the 2014 T20 World Cup in spite of being the official captain. Such was the fury of the rest of his teammates for stabbing them in the back and the members of the Technical and Advisory Committee knew only too well what transpired back then. But, there is little thought in slinging Dasun Shanaka to the wolves and facing a similar predicament in their quest for control over team selections.

What we are likely to encounter now is Dinesh Chandimal Saga 2 as the same drama unfolding yet again cannot be ruled out. As much as unity and team spirit are vital ingredients for success, the players too need to understand that unless they stay united the administrators are going to walk all over them. The fallout no doubt will be taken out on the poor cricketers who will be badgered, vilified and torn apart across all social media platforms.

Whilst all these shenanigans are played out in the corridors of power the poor cricket fan is going to be short-changed and will have no choice but to keep biting their fingernails in frustration. As the famous adage goes: “United you shall stand, and divided you shall fall.”