COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s cricket administrators scrapped their Twenty20 league yesterday after franchise holders defaulted on payments for the tournament and failed to guarantee payments to players, a top official said.
Sri Lankan Cricket decided not to go ahead with the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL) tournament and sack the seven franchise holders who failed to pay up, SLPL Director Ajit Jayasekera said.
“We will not have the tournament this year because the seven Indian franchise holders did not pay despite verbal and sometimes written assurances that they will,” Jayasekera said.
“We could not go on indefinitely.”
“We had to decide. And we have decided to terminate franchise agreements and not have the tournament this year,” he said yesterday.
In a brief one-paragraph statement, Sri Lanka Cricket said: “the Mahindra SLPL 2013 will not take place”.
Jayasekera said the authorities hoped to come up with a new model for a Twenty20 tournament next year.
Officials said all seven franchises for the SLPL were held by Indian companies.
But the concerned body had failed to meet several deadlines to pay nearly $3m.
Jayasekera said the franchise holders initially agreed to pay a total of $30.49m spread over seven years but had failed to pay their annual dues for this year by last Sunday’s deadline.
It is unclear why the franchise owners have not made payments, and their financial status is not public knowledge.
Sri Lanka played its inaugural Twenty20 last August with a handful of big-name foreign players, including Chris Gayle from the West Indies and Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi.
The tournament, modelled on the financially lucrative Indian Premier League, made a profit of about $2.2m for the SLC last year, officials said.
Ex-NZ Test star swaps doosras for dole queue
WELLINGTON: Former New Zealand Test batsman Mathew Sinclair pulled stumps on his cricket career yesterday, revealing he will instead sign on for unemployment benefits to support his family.
Sinclair remains the only New Zealander to ever score a double century on debut, smashing 214 against the West Indies in Wellington in 1999.
The lanky right-hander managed another double ton against Pakistan the following season but never cemented a spot in the national team, appearing only sporadically until his last Test in 2010.
At 37, Sinclair, who has a wife and two young children, said he could no longer rely on income from playing for the Central District Stags during the summer, then looking for casual work in the off-season.
He said prospective employers were reluctant to take him on when they knew he would be unavailable during the cricket season, so it was time to look for a long-term career.
Until then, Sinclair said he would have to sign on for the dole -- a stark reminder that not all promising cricket stars go on to fame and fortune, particularly in a small market such as New Zealand.
“It has been very hard to look for some sort of meaningful employment...
“I had to make a conscious decision to give up the game to make myself more marketable,” he told Fairfax Media.
Sinclair, who played 33 Tests with an average of 32.05, said he hoped to forge a career in business, client or retail management, team-leading or motivational work.
Sinclair scored three hundreds and four 50s in his brief Test career.AGENCIES
