- Turning big matches to three-days
Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) in a bid to mould local schoolboy cricketers to play long format cricket has set aside an annual sum of Rs. 125 million, to play 28 three-day school cricket big matches, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ashley de Silva said.
He said this speaking at a press conference held at SLC premises on Wednesday (25), to apprise the media on the steps taken by its Executive Committee (EC), to elevate school cricket by transforming traditional two-day encounters into three-day affairs.
This new concept took root with the commencement of the 2025 big match season, with the 62nd annual encounter between Thurstan and Isipathana which was played at SSC grounds last week.
As part of this new concept, all big matches along with the knockout stage matches of the Under-19 Divisions 1 and 2 (Tier A and B) tournaments, will be extended by a day to attune budding cricketers to the red-ball format.
De Silva said that as an extra day’s cricket would incur added expenditure to schools, the SLC had pledged financial grants to some 56 schools of Rs. 2.5 million each, for the third day of the match.
He said the game’s local controlling body had decided to extend the duration of school big matches, in keeping with modern day requirements of the game and to produce a production line of players who could take to the five-day format seamlessly in time to come.
The SLC CEO noted that this three-day big-match concept mooted by its President Shammi Silva, will be continued into the future and said that if certain schools are not willing to embrace it, their players will not be considered for future national selections.
“To play three-day school cricket the SLC has set aside Rs. 125 million a year,” de Silva told reporters.
“The SLC also has to incur around Rs. 5 million for every big match. Apart from this we have also allocated Rs. 400-500 million annually for distribution of cricket equipment to schools. This encompasses both men’s and women’s schools cricket. For women’s schools cricket we have channeled Rs. 25 million to the SLSCA.”
He hoped that most schools will seriously consider playing three-day cricket once they obtain approval from the Education Ministry under whose purview the SLSCA falls.
Meanwhile, ex-Sri Lanka cap and SLC High Performance Centre Manager Ruwan Kalpage observed that local cricket’s ruling body had opted for this new measure, with an eye to clinching a maiden ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup title.
He added that their main target is to be featured in the top four of the Under-19 World Cup, having reviewed the three previous World Cups in 2020-22 and 24 and expressed hope that Sri Lanka will perform up to optimum level moving forward.
Kalpage however bemoaned the fact that the island-nation were yet looking to unearth a Sanath Jayasuriya or a Romesh Kaluwitharana in batting or even a Lasith Malinga, Chaminda Vaas and a Muttiah Muralitharan in bowling, since the retirements of the said legends from international cricket.
He still was optimistic though that the proposed system for school big matches would one day change that status quo.
(JK)