LPL a valuable investment to build future T20 players: SLC

From left: SLC CEO Ashley De Silva, SLC Secretary Mohan De Silva, SLC Vice President Jayantha Dharmadasa and SLC Vice President and LPL Tournament Director Ravin Wickramaratne at the press conference – Pic by Upul Abayasekara 

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

The Lanka Premier League (LPL) would be a very valuable investment for our national and emerging cricketers in order to give them the exposure in building up a nucleus of T20 players for the future. That was the view expressed by Sri Lanka Cricket secretary Mohan de Silva at the inaugural media conference held at the Union Ballroom of Colombo Hilton Residencies yesterday to launch the LPL T20 tournament.

“This is a very historic moment for Sri Lanka cricket. We have been planning to stage this important tournament for the last three years or so but unfortunately due to various reasons we were deprived of holding the event,” said De Silva addressing the media.

“Eventually even though we were scheduled to play this tournament in August, with the emergence of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic there was so much of uncertainty prevailing, but finally we have been able to decide on the dates and make it a reality.”

The LPL is due to commence tomorrow with Colombo Kings taking on Kandy Tuskers under lights at 7.30 p.m. after the opening ceremony featuring the five teams is held at 3.30 p.m.

Speaking further De Silva stated: “I would like to recognise the untiring efforts of SLC president Shammi Silva, who vigorously pursued, despite the many complex challenges and all the turbulent times and obstacles we had to encounter, and encouraged the ExCo to somehow go ahead and play this tournament because we always felt that this would be a very valuable investment for our national cricketers.”

De Silva also praised the efforts of the tournament director Ravin Wickramaratne, who is also the Vice President of SLC.

“I like to congratulate the efforts of tournament director and SLC Vice President Ravin Wickramaratne who has marshalled his resources in the LPL committee working day and night during the last couple of years. We only had a very short time from the time we were given permission to hold this event and as such we had to meet all these challenges and adjust ourselves to meet the environmental and very complex challenges going through with this process.

“We must also recognise with gratitude the magnanimous role and the encouragement given to us by the Minister of Sports Namal Rajapaksa – who really went out of his way to assist us in obtaining the necessary approvals – the President of Sri Lanka and the Government, the Minister of Health, the Department of Health and the COVID Task Force, including its chairman Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva, all of whom extended their whole-hearted support to ensure that this tournament went ahead.”

The Managing Director of the official right holders of LPL Anil Mohan speaking on the occasion said that all initial payments due to SLC have been made before the commencement of the tournament.

“Everything is under control and I have got very good support from everyone including the Sports Minister, and vice president and tournament director. There are no issues on payments at all. The initial payments have all been made. This tournament will happen, and after the first year it will be bigger and better next year,” assured Mohan.

With regard to initial payments to the players Wickramaratne explained, stating: “We have to pay 60% to the players and the first payment was made to all the players. The second payment will be done on 25 November.”

Professor Arjuna de Silva, the Event Medical Director of LPL, congratulated SLC for holding the tournament in the current circumstances. “We know that in our country normally a quarantine period is 14 days. The Sports Minister and the Health Minister and all the Health Ministry secretaries, the Director General of Health, all got together and worked out that this quarantine should be reduced maintaining the safety of the country. So it has been reduced to seven days, and a cricketer can actually play after 10 days,” said Prof. de Silva.

“Medically you can’t tell a person immediately after he recovers from quarantine to go and engage in a stressful thing like a T20 match. I don’t think it is advisable to do that. But if they want to play against medical advice, which you can do, that is up to the player. But medical clearance can’t be given to play after 14 days because the evidence says you have to rest for another two weeks.”

Two of the overseas players, Canada’s Ravinderpal Singh and Pakistan’s Sohail Tanvir, are currently under quarantine having tested positive upon arriving in Sri Lanka.