By Revatha S. Silva

[caption id="attachment_129788" align="alignleft" width="509"] The current SLC Management Committee addressed the media on 7 April in Colombo. In the photo are (from left) its members Uchitha Wickramasinghe, Ashley de Silva, Chairman Prof. Arjuna de Silva, and National Cricket Technical Advisory Committee Chairman Aravinda de Silva[/caption]

Yielding after long, the local cricket administration has initiated an incentive scheme within the contracts of the national players. The new contracts that are now being negotiated between officials and players have also made special attention on player fitness levels, which was a contentious issue of late.

“We have started the discussions with the players and are in the process of finalising them. Hopefully, we are looking to sign up them before the Bangladesh tour (starting with the first Test on 21 April),” said Ashley de Silva, Secretary of the Administrative Committee, chaired by Prof. Arjuna de Silva, which is overlooking country’s cricket until the Sri Lanka Cricket AGM, fixed for 20 May.

“We would be giving incentives and we have actually worked out an incentive scheme, based on beating above and below ranked teams. And also we have done a kind of a model on how to categorise the players and shared it with them. Basically they are okay with all changes,” de Silva explained.

Yet many players are presumably unhappy due to the massive reduction of their payments if the new changes are to be accepted.

“Few senior players have told me that they are really worried about the drastic pay cut that may effect from the new changes. This has apparently been the key issue in those discussions (between the officials and the cricketers) that are still going on,” a senior cricketer who is privy to the ongoing talks told Sunday Morning Sports yesterday.

“But the fact which we have to understand here is that such changes have had to be made purely because of the players’ own poor performance in recent years,” he further added.

Meanwhile de Silva stressed the discussions have been cordial.

“There are no issues as such. We just went with our discussions two days ago. It was basically a cordial discussion. We briefed them about the changes that have been made. We are in the process of making those amendments and sharing it (the contract) with them,” he said.

“We have brought in some clauses related to the fitness levels, which have been specified in agreement, and a Code of Conduct too,” he further added.