Xtra Time Web Desk: Sri Lankan cricket has once again plunged into crisis as country’s leading players have refused to sign player contracts they find “unfair and non-transparent” as per media reports on Saturday. Among the cricketers who are believed to have not signed the contract papers are test captain Dimuth Karunaratne, Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal and Kusal Perera. If the dispute is not sorted in due course of time, it could well affect Sri Lanka’s bilateral series with India in July, where six white-ball matches is expected to fill the coffers of a cash-strapped cricket board of the island nation.
Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) handed contracts to 24 players on the eve of the team’s departure for Bangladesh, with lower base salaries and more performance-based incentives.
In a statement through legal representatives, the cricketers reportedly said they were “not in agreement to sign unfair and non-transparent contracts and urge SLC to not hold the players at gunpoint”.
The players, including test captain Dimuth Karunaratne and ODI skipper Kusal Perera, also expressed “shock and dismay” at the SLC’s decision to make public their proposed salary details, according to the reports.
The chairman of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) of the SLC Aravinda de Silva told reporters that they were forced to make harsh decision based on the past performances of the players.
“We wanted to have a key performance indicators for the players so that we could evaluate them,” De Silva said adding that the new pay scheme was an incentive based contract,
The players feel the salary offered to them was roughly one-third of what their counterparts in some other nations got.
The Sri Lankan team under Kusal Janith Perera is currently touring Bangladesh for a three match ODI series which begins from Sunday at the Sher e Bangla stadium in Mirpur.