Saturday Apr 04, 2026
Saturday Apr 04, 2026
Wednesday, 1 April 2026 00:10 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Tournament Committee Chairman Nalin Aponso (second from right) addressing the media conference in the presence of tournament Committee Member Marlon Fernandopulle, Secretary Kasun Fernando, and Head of National Cricket Operations Chinthaka Edirimanne
By Sa’adi Thawfeeq
Sri Lanka Cricket Tournament Committee Chairman Nalin Aponso said that major structural changes are in the offing to uplift the standard of domestic cricket in the country.
Addressing a media conference at the SSC pavilion yesterday, Aponso said that from next season the promotion and demotion of clubs will take place on a weightage system taking into account the performances of each team in the 3 formats Major League, Major T20 and Major 50-over tournaments.
“From this we rank the teams from 1-14. The team that finishes last will be demoted to play in Tier B and the Tier B winner will be promoted to play in the Major Clubs,” said Aponso.
“Domestic cricket is the breeding ground for Sri Lanka cricket. So, from next year there are going to be big structural changes which have to be put to the Executive Committee on 5 April for approval. All these years there was a promotion and relegation system in place for the various tournaments conducted by SLC, but in the long term we have decided if we are to further improve our domestic cricket standards, we have to give due credit to every competition.”
“This step has been taken to ensure that all the top players remain with their clubs for all three formats and the matches are competitive. Otherwise, the overall ranking of their respective clubs will drop. Presently, once the 3-day tournament is over players migrate to play overseas and weaken the competition in the two white ball formats T20 and 50-over.”
Continuing further Aponso stated that the decision taken by the tournament committee to play all the Major Club 3-day matches at neutral venues for the current season had borne fruit. The preparation of pitches for the 12 venues used for the matches were monitored by Sri Lanka Cricket.
To state his point Aponso produced comparative statistics from last season and the current season.
The average runs scored from 73 matches played in 2024-25 was 753.75 and in 2025-26 it has risen to 852.87 from 67 matches. Comparatively, the total wickets taken by fast bowlers last year was 518 wickets compared to 548 in 2025-26. For spin it was 1516 to 1105 wickets. Likewise, in batting the number of hundreds scored in 2024-25 and 2025-26 are (71 and 90), fifties (243 and 268) and double hundreds (5 and 8). There has been a big improvement with regard to fast bowlers. Whereas there were only 14 five-wicket innings hauls in 2024-25, this season it has risen to 19, while for the spinners there has been a big drop from 84 to 45.
“We are of the view that with these changes we have made some meaningful structural changes for the betterment of domestic cricket,” said Aponso.
“This season we were able to witness good competition and we in the tournament committee are exceptionally happy because we witnessed quality cricket being played. The cricket played was of a competitive nature. After a long time, we saw a competitive domestic tournament being played because until the final weekend no one could decide who the winner was going to be as four teams were in contention for the title. Eventually, Colts emerged the champions.”
Aponso pointed out that SLC spends around Rs. 45 million for each club playing in the Major Club 3-day tournament and from that Rs. 10 million goes for the payment of players fees. Apart from that a player earns around Rs. 8000 per match for a 3-day game and it is more when he plays in the National Super League (NSL).
“While structuring the changes we realised that if we are to develop the standard of our cricket the umpiring standards has to be uplifted as well as the standard of the coaches. We have given to every club a mandatory guideline on how to get about it,” he said.
