A total of 26 Sri Lanka domestic teams will be playing a 2-day club tournament following the completion of the cash-rich Lanka Premier League (LPL), Cricket Age exclusively learns.
Initially, the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) was planning to play a 3-day tournament. However, few weeks ago, board’s tournament committee proposed to scrap it altogether, citing the lack of time to play it.
Legendary Aravinda de Silva led Technical Committee, However, has recommended to play it as a 2-day tournament.
“We thought that simply scrapping it is not ideal, especially for the hundreds of domestic players. So, we have recommended to play a 2-day club tournament comprising of all 26 teams” one of the committee member told Cricket Age.
After 2-day club tournament, a provincial tournament is also scheduled to be played.
“Players for the provincial tournament will be selected on the basis of their performance in the 2-day tournament” Technical Committee member added.
In the new structure, which was designed by the Tournament Committee (headed by Samantha Dodanwela) in consultation with the Technical Advisory Committee led by De Silva, it was proposed to scrap the existing ‘Tier A’ & ‘Tier B’ competitions for the clubs. Currently, there are 14 teams in ‘Tier A’ and 12 teams in ‘Tier B’. In the new structure, all the 26 teams currently with first-class status were supposed to be divided into two groups of 13 teams and play three-day cricket in the Major Clubs League Tournament and 50-over cricket in the Major Clubs Limited Overs Tournament concurrently. The lowest ranked two teams from each group in the Major Clubs League Tournament were supposed to be relegated to the Governor’s Trophy competition from next season.
However, now it won’t be happening for this year.
“We don’t have a separate window to play 3-day tournament. So, for this year, there will be no relegation” Technical Committee member added further.
