Several Sri Lanka Players Refuse To Sign New Contracts Citing Low Pay

Mumbai: Sri Lankan cricketers led by Test captain Dimuth Karunaratne as well as several senior players including Dinesh Chandimal and Angelo Mathews have refused to sign the central contracts offered by the board, which they consider far less than other countries.

If the dispute is not resolved in a timely manner, it may well affect Sri Lanka’s bilateral series with India in July, where six white-ball matches are expected to fill the island nation’s cricket board coffers.

A statement from the lawyer representing almost all the top players, including Test captain Karunaratne, Mathews, Chandimal and others, said that as per the Federation of International Cricket Association (FICA) reports, players are one third compared to some other cricket playing nations.

SLC said this week that 24 major players were offered contracts under 4 categories and were given a June 3 deadline to sign on the dotted lines.

In the categories released only six players are in category A and their annual pay ranges between USD 70,000 to 100,000. Batsman Dhananjaya de Silva draws the highest – 100,000 with the rest of them were to receive 70-80,000 US dollars.

Sri Lankan players said in a joint statement that they were “surprised and disappointed” by SLC’s decision to go public with specific payment details of the players.

She feels that public disclosure has affected her mental peace.

“These revelations are a serious security concern for every player,” it said.

SLC’s Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) chairman Arvind de Silva told reporters that he was forced to make drastic decisions based on the past performance of the players.

“We wanted to have an important performance indicator for the players so that we could evaluate them,” De Silva said. The new salary scheme was an incentive-based contract.

The players however refused to take the entire blame for Sri Lanka’s shoddy performances over the years.

They maintain the administrators and the local structure were contributory factors to Sri Lanka’s decline in international rankings.

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