Aravinda de Silva, the Chairman of the Cricket Committee speaking to ESPN Cricinfo, said that the national players rejecting the central contracts is very unfair, as SLC offers many benefits for the players for winning series against top ranked teams in every format.
De Silva, who heads the Cricket Committee, is one of the pioneers of developing a new national player contract system along with the Director of Cricket, Tom Moody. According to De Silva, the new contracts of the players are structured based on the models of corporate world contracts.
“We discussed this matter in depth before we presented it to the players. Unlike in the past, we have increased the benefits three-fold than what it was, but purely on the team’s performance… If they win a Test series, we pay them US$ 150,000, which was earlier limited to US$ 50,000. It has to be a collective effort by the whole team,” De Silva said.
“We also introduced a slab for the T20 format which also runs up to a maximum of US$ 50,000, whereas earlier we didn’t have any rewards at all,” De Silva further said.
De Silva made these comments after the national players rejected to sign the newly proposed annual player contracts, citing that the new system is not transparent. The senior players particularly highlighted the fact that the new system rewards future potential of players than performance and experience.
Replying to the complaints made by the players, De Silva responded saying that the players need to play better Cricket in the middle rather than complaining about contracts.
“The most important fact is that they should get into the middle and play positive Cricket, and start winning games for the country rather than complaining. This positive approach will encourage us to consider offering them more benefits, like some of the other countries in our region. If the team creates value, their incentives will also go up,” De Silva said.
