The worsening economic and political situation in Sri Lanka has cast doubts over Australia’s tour to the country next month although both Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and Cricket Australia (CA) are maintaining that the month-long series will go ahead.
“At present the tour will go on as planned. We will be looking at the developments in the next couple of days and decide what to do,” Mohan de Silva, the secretary of SLC, told Cricbuzz on Wednesday (May 4).
Australia are to play three T20Is, five ODIs and two Tests from June 7 to July 12.
The uncertainty, which even the SLC official is conceding, is because of the situation at ground zero. There has been an acute shortage of essentials, fuel, food stocks; the people are having to experience long hours of power outage. There was a 12-hour power cut last month but the condition has seemingly improved with a fluctuating scenario of three hours, give or take. There was no power cut on May Day.
In that backdrop, there were questions if the SLC should have the day-night games in the first place with a few stakeholders of the SLC of the view that the white-ball games could be converted into day games. De Silva said a call will be taken on that soon, but an SLC official said the board is not dependent on the national grid.
“We have our own generators and we don’t depend on the government’s power. It will be a different case if there is a fuel shortage,” said Charith Senanayake, a former manager of the Sri Lanka national team. “The political situation has no bearing on the game and the SLC is always apolitical.”
The SLC is also planning to start its full-fledged domestic season on May 22.
“Whether day or day-night game is up to the host nation,” said a spokesman of the CA confirming that the tour will take place. “There is no change to the status of the tour. Our head of security confirms that there are no concerns about the tour proceeding as scheduled from either side. The squad will arrive (in Sri Lanka) in June.”
The option of moving the series out of Sri Lanka was considered but UAE is not the right place for cricket in June-July because of extreme heat.
The CA and SLC assurances notwithstanding, Cricbuzz can confirm that both boards have expressed apprehensions internally with their stakeholders saying a lot will depend on how the situation pans out going forward in the next 30 days.
“One month is too long a time to predict anything because we do know what will happen in the next week. Like in any civil unrest, life moves on and that is happening in Sri Lanka (too). The country has gone bankrupt and the political situation is volatile and unclear. The political activists are agitating outside the president’s house but I don’t think he is anyway concerned.
“The law enforcing authorities, with their past experience, are accommodating and there is no unrest on the streets. The people are listening to music at home and they will watch cricket too. But it will take one insane person to disturb the quietness, so we can’t predict what will be the state of affairs when the series is scheduled to begin more than a month ago,” says Colombo-based Malinda Seneviratne, a political analyst.
The series is important for the cash-strapped SLC. The overseas value of the tour is about USD 2 million. The internal media rights worth would be of about USD 300,000 and through ground advertisements and other sources of income, the Lanka Board can raise up to USD 3 million overall. But the production outlay would be just as high too. At the end of the series, the SLC could be left with USD 1 million revenue, substantial amount by all means considering that the country is left with only $50 million foreign exchange.
