Domestic cricket season undergoes major reshuffling

The Major League will see the relegation of the number of clubs from 26 to 15 by 2025

• Season to be run within calendar year from 2022

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka Cricket has streamlined its domestic season to fall within the calendar year from 2022. The new season (2022) will commence in mid-January with the National Super League (NSL) limited-over tournament and will conclude in December with the Lanka Premier League (LPL) third edition.

In the past, the domestic season was run during the financial year from April to March.

The NSL limited-over which will run from mid-January till mid-February will be followed by the NSL four-day matches from mid-February till mid-April.

The National Super League (formerly provincial tournament) will comprise the five provinces – Western, Central, North Central, North and South.

Explaining how the NSL will be run, Tournament Committee chairman Samantha Dodanwela said: “We are taking the main five clubs with infrastructure (i.e. grounds, indoor nets, side wickets, gymnasium which are a must, plus swimming pool). SSC, NCC, CCC and Tamil Union have all those facilities, the fifth club will be Colts (who don’t have a swimming pool). These five clubs will be put into five different groups (ie. to each of the provinces). The remaining 21 clubs will go into the five groups. The clustering will be done today (Tuesday) evening and it will be given to the national selectors to pick the sides.

“There are 18 national contracted cricketers and all of them will be picked for the NSL (L/O and four-day). The balance players will be picked from the clubs by the selectors. However, the national selectors will not get involved at all in the tournament, they will only overlook it. We plan to appoint selectors separately to each different cluster. “We are trying to get the club coaches also involved in it because they are the best to pick players. At the same time to avoid conflict of interest, the coach from the club that falls into the province will be coaching a different province. We are also paying the players a substantial amount. Each team will have 20 registered players.”

Running concurrently with the NSL (four-day) will be the Emerging Trophy tournament.

There will be a break for one and a half months during which period a window has been given to the Mercantile Cricket Association to conduct its tournaments from mid-April to the end of May.

In mid-June will commence the Major Inter-Club Limited-Over and League tournaments which will be run concurrently with the participation of 26 clubs. The relegation process will take place from this Major League tournament to reduce the number of first-class clubs to 15 by 2025.

“The first two years there will be four clubs relegated each year, and in the third year three clubs. Altogether a total of 11 clubs will be relegated by 2025 so that we will have only 15 first-class teams playing in the Major tournaments (Limited-Over, League and T20) by 2025. This structure has been approved by the SLC ExCo and will remain in place for the next five years,” said Dodanwela.

The Major Inter-Club T20, Dodanwela said, will be played just before the Lanka Premier League 3 in November, after which the 2022 season will effectively end.

The Governors Trophy inter-club tournament (which is second to the Major clubs tournament and formerly played as Division II for the Donovan Andree Trophy) will take place in January as part of the 2020-21 season, to give players from remote areas and schoolboys the opportunity of playing cricket. The Governors Trophy for 2022 will commence in June. A total of 24 clubs will participate.

Dodanwela said that SLC will take a call on when to conduct the Division III inter-club tournament which has not been held for the past two years. “Initially the five provinces will conduct the tournaments and the winner of each province will be announced. SLC will take it over from there and run the tournament as a final round.”