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Players plead for annual contracts, feel victimised by seniors?

18 Jul 2021

     

By Revatha S. Silva

[caption id="attachment_150310" align="alignleft" width="455"] Victimised by the seniors, the young faces of the Sri Lanka squad are willing to sign annual contracts with Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC). Photo SLC[/caption]

The Sri Lanka cricket squad, barring some of the senior players, have written to Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) that they are now ready to sign their annual contracts.

“As you are aware, we have not been paid since 1st of January 2021 in view of the newly-introduced evaluation system which, when finally was out in March 2021, the players were unclear of the methodology adopted, giving rise to the request that it be given in writing,” current players, who are now on only tour-by-tour contracts including the current India limited-over series, wrote in a letter to SLC yesterday (17).

Since January, the player contract issue had been dragging on unresolved due to the fact that some of the leading senior players were reluctant to sign them citing lack of transparency, particularly in player categorisation.

The young members of the current national squad, who have committed immensely to reach this far in their cricket, are now struggling to continue with full-time cricket in Sri Lanka without having central, annual contracts with SLC, mainly owing to their day-to-day financial constraints. The tour-only contracts are putting them in further trouble in the long run, some of the players have informed.

“They were expecting the annual contract pretty badly. Now those new ones are finding it difficult to pay their housing leases and parents’ medical insurances etc while their personal family arrangements, such as marriages, too are put on hold,” an inside source told the Sunday Morning Sports.

Junior victimised

As a result of the ‘senior players vs. SLC’ contract dispute this year, national players had to engage in international cricket series without signing their annual contracts and, on some occasions, the senior players were so adamant that they did not even sign the tour contracts. At times, like in the previous England tour, they had to be ‘threatened’ by SLC officials to persuade them to sign by telling the seniors that a second-string side would be sent if they did not sign the tour contract.

Objectively, as we have mentioned in these spaces many times before, the senior players have arbitrarily dragged the juniors and the newcomers in the national side into the player contract issue by trying to generalise the problem among all whereas almost all such juniors have been offered substantial annual payments.

Murali’s last week doosra!

Last week Muttiah Muralitharan, one of the members of the Technical Advisory Committee which has allegedly drafted the new contracts, said in a TV talk show that seniors such as Dimuth Karunaratne and Angelo Mathews do not wish to sign because they have a pay cut in the current contracts.

“Those seniors are trying to destroy the careers of the juniors by making use of them for their own benefit,” said Muralitharan, implying that those juniors were willing to sign despite the “threat” coming from the seniors.

Muralitharan also criticised lawyer Nishan Premathiratne, who represented all players in the contract dispute, for the way he handled the issue.

Players regret what SLC had to undergo

Meanwhile Sri Lanka team sources revealed yesterday (17) that almost all younger members of the current national squad are willing to sign the annual contracts. They are of the opinion that they have been unduly victimised by the seniors, who have virtually held the juniors to ransom mainly because the newly-proposed annual contracts have brought down the seniors’ salaries by up to about 30%.

The above letter, sent to SLC by the junior members of the Sri Lanka squad, clarifies that the players have no further doubt over the new contract scheme. Lack of transparency in the methodology used in drafting new contracts was said to be the seniors’ main concern.

“We thank you for acceding to our request, as we are now aware of how we have been categorised and placed on various structures for annual contracts based on performance, fitness and other specified criteria. [We] kindly request that [SLC] grant [our] annual contract with reciprocal effect, from 1st January 2021 for which [we] would be most grateful,” (emphasis ours).

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