The Sri Lanka Cricket Executive Committee has decided to bound the national cricketers only by a tour contract for their tour of England in May as their annual contracts are not yet finalized.
The two-month long England tour will start early May and it includes three Tests, five ODIs and one T20I. The annual player contracts for all the players were due to expire at the end of February but due to the Asia Cup and ICC World T20 Tournaments it was extended till the end of April.
According to Sri Lanka Cricket Secretary Mohan De Silva, the board is planning on bringing in a new contract system to motivate the players to perform better and gain more incentives apart of their annual retainer, ” We are in the process of working out a formula that will be more on a performance based system. We will give them a reasonable annual retainer then thereafter it will be on the basis of their performance.” De Silva said to DailyNews.
The selectors have named a 25-member squad for the England tour training which starts today (18th April) after the Sinhala and Tamil New Year Holidays. The preliminary squad has not been released to the Media.
In 2014, the board and the players were in a long standoff regarding the annual contracts as the went to Bangladesh to win the ICC World T20 without signing their annual contracts but eventually it was sorted out.
According to close sources in Sri Lanka Cricket, a player in the top category earns more than 50-million Sri Lankan rupees annually only on contract fee and match fees.
