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The Sri Lanka cricket team, due to play a limited-overs series against India starting next week, finally signed their annual contracts, after almost two months of negotiations over pay cuts and being set a July 8 deadline.
A 24-member Sri Lanka squad returned from the UK on Tuesday (July 6), but all of them ran the risk of being snubbed from the India series on failure to sign the agreements.
Sources in the know told AFP that the players were given a choice between signing the new contracts or leaving the Taj Samudra hotel in Colombo by Wednesday morning.
“Players were told in no uncertain terms that they should accept the new terms or leave the team hotel by Wednesday morning. They have signed the contracts and the pay dispute is now over,” a Sri Lanka board source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The new annual contracts announced in May rocked Sri Lanka cricket as cricketers were unhappy over the 40 percent reduction in pay. All-rounder Dhananjaya de Silva and wicketkeeper-batsman Niroshan Dickwella are the highest-paid players as per the fresh agreements, with both drawing cheques of USD 100,000 each.
In a remarkable development, veteran all-rounder Angelo Mathews and former captain Dimuth Karunaratne have been left out of the new annual contracts. Both have been told they would be paid for Test appearances, leaving Karunaratne “stunned” while Mathews hinted at calling it quits.
After seven members of the England team tested positive for Covid-19, the Sri Lankan cohort are quarantining upon returning from the UK with all of them having to undergo RT-PCR tests. The Indian squad, on the other hand, have completed their mandatory seven-day isolation period and begun training.
Full squad and schedule for India tour of Sri Lanka 2021 (Timings in IST)
1st ODI: July 13 – R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo – 2:30 PM
2nd ODI: July 16 – R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo – 2:30 PM
3rd ODI: July 18 – R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo – 2:30 PM
1st T20I: July 21 – R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo – 7:00 PM
2nd ODI: July 23 – R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo – 7:00 PM
3rd T20I: July 13 – R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo – 7:00 PM
India squad: Shikhar Dhawan (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Rana, Ishan Kishan (Wicketkeeper), Sanju Samson (Wicketkeeper), Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, K Gowtham, Krunal Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Vice-captain), Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Chetan Sakariya
Net Bowlers: Ishan Porel, Sandeep Warrier, Arshdeep Singh, Sai Kishore, Simarjeet Singh
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