Sports
Pay disputes aren’t new but are they reasonable?
by Rex Clementine
Pay disputes go back to the times of Bandula Warnapura, our first Test captain. But he was an absolute beauty. He is more of a working-class hero. There was a bit of Ian Chappell in him. He fought for his players. Not for seniority payment or anything.
Sri Lanka Cricket at times have cut down pay for players significantly just to rein them in. There have been Sri Lankan teams in the past that have refused to sign contracts, but gone on tour, won the championship and then demanded the pound of flesh, which in a way is fair enough.
So if Kusal Perera’s side beats England, the world’s number one ranked team, in the upcoming series, the cricket-loving public will not mind even if the players are paid triple the bonus they have been promised.
But what is happening right now is bizarre. The players have said that they are willing to play free as long as their employers show them the formula with which the annual contracts were formulated. Surely, there has to be a better reason than that for you to go on war path with your employers. Mind you players have been warned with three years suspension from all forms of cricket which is quite serious.
Past greats have taken on the board for reasons other than pay. There have been instances when some players have pulled out of tours when their colleagues have been unceremoniously axed from the side. Can’t remember anyone from the current side standing moral high ground when cricket’s beauty was butchered. Then, why suddenly show yourself as a paragon of virtue wanting to know the mechanism the contracts were formed on.
Of course, the seniors have been made to go through pay cuts. Some of them will lose at least US$ 50,000. But that seems their least concern. If the mechanism is indeed your issue, did you have to put through such a drama where you even refused to sign a tour declaration? So virtually, there’s more to it than players wanting clarity about how players were categorized into contracts.
We aren’t saying that the contracts offered to the players are without loopholes. Take the case of Niroshan Dickwella for example. He had not featured in an ODI for more than two years but ended up on a topmost contract. Then there is Kasun Rajitha who played just two games across all formats of the game and ends up with a C1 contract.
SLC has said that the pandemic has forced it to suffer major financial losses and pay cuts are inevitable. However, none of the top executives of the board have taken pay cuts.
As Director of Cricket Tom Moody tried to explain it is far better to stick to a performance-based payment structure than doling out money on a seniority basis. It is certainly unfair on some of the players who have represented the country for over a decade now but sadly, the team’s performance has been so poor that our global rankings have hit rock bottom in recent times.
The system needed a shake-up and the players a huge wake-up call to get their act together. Cricket is something that we Sri Lankans love so dearly and the game can not suffer more setbacks. Professional sportsmen cannot finish two kilometers in eight and half minutes while others can’t give up chocolates. True that someone like Arjuna Ranatunga would have never survived the current fitness regime. But do keep in mind that he never let his performances drop. He was one of the fiercest competitors on the cricket field.
Also, there’s a hue and cry about the salary of Tom Moody. It is said that the Director of Cricket is paid a princely sum of US$ 1900 daily. People have little clue that Bangladesh’s spin bowling coach is paid US$ 1500 daily. The common man on the streets just wants one thing now that is to fix the current cricket mess. Hopefully, we will come out of it sooner.
Rain in Bulawayo allowed just ten overs of action between Bangladesh and New Zealand .
The match began an hour later than scheduled, and as a 47-over contest after Bangladesh opted to bowl. Iqbal Hossain Emon cleaned Hugo Bogue up for 8 in the second over, but just as Aryan Mann and Tom Jones steadied New Zealand, rain returned, only for no play to be possible after that.
It was New Zealand’s second washed-out game in a row, and they will hope to beat India in their final group game so that they don’t have to depend on the result of the Bangladesh-USA match to progress to the Super Sixes.
No result: New Zealand 51 for 1 vs Bangladesh
The first over of the 202 chase set the tone for what followed as Australia cruised past Japan at the Under19 World Cup in Windhoek. Will Malajczuk smashed Nikhil Pol for 14 runs, and never looked back, racing to a 23-ball fifty and a 51-ball hundred as Australia chased down the target with eight wickets and nearly 20 overs to spare to seal a Super Sixes berth.
By the time Japan finally got rid of Malajczuk, he had thumped 102 off 55 balls, with 12 fours and five sixes. He brought up his half-century midway through the sixth over, by which point Australia were already 66 for 0, with Malajczuk contributing 57 of those runs off 26 balls. At the other end, his opening partner Nitesh Samuel scored 7 from ten deliveries.
The pair added 135 for the first wicket, with Malajczuk doing the bulk of the damage as Samuel settled into a calmer role. While Malajczuk fell shortly after reaching his hundred, Samuel carried on to bring up his fifty off 62 balls in the 25th over and finished unbeaten on 60. He had scored an unbeaten 77 against Ireland in Australia’s opening game of the tournament.
Earlier, Japan were content to take their time after opting to bat. HUGO Tani Kelly was once again their standout, following up his 101 not out against Sri Lanka with an unbeaten 79. Japan, however, slipped from a position of stability to lose four wickets for 13 runs in a middle-order collapse, during which legspinner Naden Cooray struck three times.
Tani-Kelly added 72 for the seventh wicket with Montgomery Hara-Hinze before Japan eventually finished on 201, although 30 extras from Australia played its part. The target hardly bothered Australia, whose win makes both teams’ next group game a dead rubber.
Brief scores:
Australia Under 19s 204 for 2 in 29.1 overs (Will Malajczuk 102, Nitesh Samuel 60*; Nihar Parmar 1-35) beat Japan Under 19s 201 for 8 in 50 overs (Hugo Tani-Kelly 79*; Naden Cooray 3-31, Will Byrom 2-32) by eight wickets
(Cricinfo)
There is officially a traffic jam in the WPL points tale. A day after RCB qualified for the playoffs, Delhi Capitals (DC) captain Jemimah Rodrigues led her team over the line in a tense and hard-fought chase to extend Mumbai Indians’ (MI) losing streak to three games in a row. That means all four teams apart from RCB now have four points each after DC lifted themselves off the bottom to push Gujarat Giants down to fifth.
Chasing 155 on a slow Vadodara track, DC saw Rodrigues walk out needing 71 off 58 balls. The MI bowlers then dried up the boundaries by taking the pace off on a pitch keeping a little low as well and forced Rodrigues and Laura Wolvaardt to mostly trade in singles and doubles. Rodrigues, however, kept finding the boundaries – square and behind square – to bring the equation down to a more comfortable 27 from 18. She placed the ball in the gaps for three more boundaries before Marizanne Kapp smoked a six to seal victory with an over to spare.
MI were earlier restricted after another slow powerplay with the bat. Once the openers failed again, Nat Sciver Brunt did the heavy lifting once more with an unbeaten 65 after Harmanpreet Kaur fell for 41, as Shree Charani’s 3 for 33 dented MI while they looked to press the pedal. But the total wasn’t enough as almost all DC batters got going and Rodrigues scored her maiden fifty of the season and as WPL captain.
Even though MI stuck to their opening pair from the last game, it didn’t change their powerplay fortunes. They continued to be the worst performing team in that phase, with a score of 23 for 2 against the DC quicks who kept aiming for the stumps. With some movement with the new ball, Nandani Sharma knocked over S Sajana’s off stump in the fourth over and Kapp had Hayley Matthews’ middle stump knocked back by two balls later.
The run rate was starting to plummet further as Sciver-Brunt kept finding the fielders and Harmanpreet got off to her usual slow start of 5 off 13. Until spin was introduced. Harmanpreet found the boundary twice as soon as Shree Charani erred with her lengths, including a trademark inside-out drive over the covers. Sciver-Brunt started to pepper the leg-side fence, and she stylishly brought up the half-century stand and push the run rate over six with an inside-out drive for the first six of the innings.
Just when Harmanpreet had started to turn into Harmonster with three consecutive fours off Shafali Verma square of the wicket, DC dented MI’s middle order. The big wicket came through Shree Charani who had Harmanpreet hole out to long-on for 41 off 33 and even though Sciver-Brunt kept finding the boundaries regularly around the park and brought up her 11th WPL half-century – joint most with Meg Lanning – and third of the season, Shree Charani’s double-wicket 18th over that went for just four runs rocked MI again. After just 11 runs in the 18th and 19th overs, Sanskriti Gupta’s last-ball six helped MI collect 13 from the last over to post 154, their lowest total this season.
DC had the kind of powerplay MI can only dream of this WPL. The MI bowlers strayed often with their lines and Shafali and Lizelle Lee pulled and punched with confidence for boundaries to try and wipe out a good chunk of the target in the first six. They collected three fours each off Nicola Carey and Sanskriti in the second and sixth overs respectively, and the others in between for two fours each. With 57 smashed in the powerplay, DC had brought the asking run rate down to seven an over.
WPL debutant and left-arm spinner Vaishnavi Sharma, a replacement for the injured G Kamalini, started to loop deliveries from wide of the crease that made DC’s job tougher to dispatch the ball to boundaries. Amanjot Kaur was frugal too and she accounted for Lee with a stumping through a wide down leg, although it took several replays for the third umpire Ajitesh Argal to conclude Lee’s bat was in the air and foot on the line when the bails came off. The boundaries dried up for 20 balls, the equation became a stiff 51 off 36, but Rodrigues was determined to see the chase through.
She scooped, swept, reverse swept – all while staying low on the pitch – and smacked a six over midwicket to not let the pressure get to her. One of her shots even had Wolvaardt run-out at the non-striker’s end with a deflection off Sciver-Brunt’s hand, but Rodrigues kept her nerve to beat the defending champions.
Brief scores:
U – 19 world Cup: Rain disrupts New Zealand vs Bangladesh game in Bulawayo
U – 19 World Cup: Will Malajczuk’s 51-ball century helps Australia blow Japan away
Rodrigues holds nerve as Delhi Capitals hand Mumbai Indians third straight loss
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