Jaywardene believes limited overs series will be more profitable for the board
Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene has defended Sri Lanka Cricket’s decision to scrap five Test matches from the national team’s schedule in 2013, stating that limited overs series will help improve the financial situation of the board.
Sri Lanka Cricket recently cancelled their two-Test series against the West Indies in May-June and replaced it with an ODI tri-series involving India as well.
The national team’s three-Test series at home against South Africa has also been postponed until 2015.
The country’s cricket board has been in debt for a while now and at one point after the conclusion of the 2011 International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup, they could not afford to pay the wages of their contracted players for eight months.
The board highly profits from allowing their players to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL) since 10 per cent of all players salaries go straight to them and their inaugural edition of the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL) was highly successful as well as it raked in around $1.6 million.
Sri Lanka are now heading to Australia for a three-Test series, after which they are not scheduled to play another Test match against a top eight ranked opposition for over 10 months in 2013.
“The financial situation of SLC its important,” Jayawardene said. “They made certain calls. As players we have to see whether we have to go another 12 months without getting paid, or our first-class cricketers being not paid, or first-class cricket being not played at all due to financial issues, or whether they need to reshuffle our schedule and accommodate something else and look into playing Test cricket later on.
“These are tough calls. Obviously there’s going to be two sides of the coin. Some people aren’t going to like it while some people understand it’s for a cause. We need to go ahead with it without making a huge fuss. It’s disappointing, but we move on.”
Earlier this year, Sri Lanka scrapped their Test series with India and instead changed it into a limited overs series and also reduced their three-Test series against England to two.
Despite having such long breaks between series now, Jayawardene calmed fears that Sri Lanka’s batsmen and bowlers were going to be out of shape and not in form by stating that the team still practised on a regular basis.
“Everyone had a good net session – not just the batsmen, but even the bowlers who are coming back from injury,” Jayawardene said. “Samaraweera, Prasanna and Tharanga have been working hard with the A-team coaches, although they didn’t have any competitive cricket. All three of them are batting really well. They are very hungry and ready to play some competitive cricket. We are having five Tests in a row, which is great for us.”