The Sri Lanka cricketers were given time till this afternoon to accept the terms of their contracts after a fresh issue over payments surfaced earlier this week.

Players led by Angelo Mathews met with cricket officials in order to reach a compromise over current impasse but the SLC had stubbornly maintained their stance with a new deadline given to accept contract terms or risk being dropped from the tour of Zimbabwe.

After employing players on tour contracts since February (their 2015-2016 contracts ended in February), SLC offered them a new performance-based agreement which sees a substantial cut in players’ annual contract fees, although they have been offered significant win bonuses and individual performance bonuses.

However, players registered their firm disapproval, demanding a increase instead. In addition they were demanding that SLC pay them, 10 percent share of SLC’s income from global events which was agreed by former cricket administrators in 2014.  

“We have given them time till tomorrow (October 20) to accept the new terms,” said Ashley de Silva, CEO Sri Lanka Cricket. “We met them this morning (19) and handed over the contract papers to sign. Hopefully by tomorrow (20) they will sign and return it to us”.

“There are some concerns by some players and we are looking at them,” he added.

Players incur a substantial cut on annual contract fees under the proposed agreements, but De Silva is confident it would not lead to any sort of resistance from the players.

“To be honest at least 90 percent of the players are receiving much more than what they were getting last year. I don’t think there will be any issues,” he added.

SLC distributed contract papers to 17 players last morning, including captain and vice-captain while papers will be issued to 13 more players later.

SLC’s decision to introduce pay-cuts was largely motivated by finding the Board had disbursed Rs. 684.85 million - approximately around 33 percent of Board’s income - among the 16 players in the National Squad during the previous contract year.

The possibility that Sri Lanka will send a second string squad for the two-match Test series against Zimbabwe and a subsequent Tri-Series also involving West Indies is real and growing.(Champika Fernando)