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Pay dispute rocks Sri Lankan cricket  

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Sri Lanka’s national cricketers have refused to sign central contracts after a 200% pay cut. 

Rex Clementine in Kandy

A bitter pay dispute is on the cards after salaries of Sri Lanka’s national cricketers were cut by significant amounts lead up to the two Test series against Bangladesh.  The national cricket team is currently engaging in the series having refused to sign annual contracts and the deadlock could have a serious impact on the sport. The players have been without central contracts since January.

The players are disgruntled that they are going to lose out a significant portion of their pay in the central contracts.

A player in the top category according to the previous contract earned US$ 130,000 but now that could be lesser than US$ 45,000; a 200% salary cut. Also taken out of the pay package is the seniority payment. For example, a player with over 20 Tests would get paid an additional amount of US$ 500, over 40 Tests an additional amount of US$ 750, over 60 Tests a bonus of US$ 1000 while someone who has represented the country in 80 Tests would earn US$ 2000 additionally, for every game he plays. That incentive has been completely taken off, angering the top brass of the national cricket team.  

Although the first category has been reduced to US$ 100,000, in reality, someone like Suranga Lakmal, who features in Test cricket only, could earn something like US$ 45,000. That is because a points system decides how the players get paid and those who represent the team in all three formats have a better chance of getting the entire 100,000.

However, it doesn’t give someone like Lakmal, who has been highly impressive in the last two years, to continue to toil in Test cricket any longer. The easier option for him is to sign up a three year County Cricket deal in England, which would ensure him a pay of GBP 100,000 for a season, four times the pay compared to SLC’s annually.

Players are in discussion with their lawyers on what course of action that needs to be taken.

The details of the new contract were explained by Director Cricket Tom Moody by teleconference prior to the start of the current series. “Although Tom explained the contents of the contract, he got stuck at certain points unable to explain some of the things. It seems that this wasn’t prepared by him but someone else,” a player told The Island.

So, who is the mastermind who prepared the contract that has put the players on warpath with their employers? It appears that the mastermind is a former captain who is currently roaming the streets of Colaba, Bandra and Andheri and in his playing days teamed up with crooked player agent Charlie Austin asking for the pound of flesh from SLC.  He’s now a poacher turned gamekeeper.

Everything is not gloomy about the new contract though. There are some excellent clauses like failure of two kilometer run or skin-fold test resulting in you losing significant portion of your contract. Or in case of Kusal Mendis’ hit and run, that would result in losing the entire contract. 



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Lanning ruled out of the Ashes, Healy to lead Australia

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Meg Lanning will miss the Ashes in England (pic Cricinfo)
Australia captain Meg Lanning has been ruled out of the Ashes due to medical reasons Alyssa Healy will lead the side in the multi-format series which begins on June 22.
Lanning returned to playing in January after taking an extended break from the game to manage her mental health and led Australia to the T20 World Cup title in South Africa during March before going on to feature in the inaugural WPL.
A CA statement added: “On the advice of CA medical staff, Lanning has been withdrawn from the squad due to a medical issue which requires management from home. A timeline for Lanning’s return to play will become clearer in due course.”
It will be the second Ashes series that Lanning has missed after she sat out the 2017-18 series in Australia due to a shoulder injury.
(Cricinfo)
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Ryan Crouser breaks world shot put record with 23.56m in Los Angeles

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Ryan Crouser (pic World Athletics)

USA’s Ryan Crouser threw 23.56m* to improve his own world shot put record at the USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix, this season’s sixth World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, on Saturday (27).

That mark adds 19cm to the previous world record of 23.37m that Crouser recorded at the US Olympic Trials in Eugene in June 2021.

The world record had looked under threat when the world and Olympic champion opened his series with 23.23m. He went even farther in round two, throwing 23.31m and edging closer to the barrier at the back of the throws area.

After a third-round throw of 22.94m, Crouser took to the circle for his fourth attempt and launched the implement 23.56m, raising his arms and clapping when the distance was confirmed.

He completed a sensational series with 22.80m in the fifth round and 22.86m in the sixth.

(World Athletics)

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Gill gets ready to spoil Dhoni’s farewell party

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Mahendra Singh Dhoni wouldn’t mind a ‘Farewell to Remember’ but a young Shubman Gill, oozing grace, would do everything under his control to prevent Chennai Super Kings from beating Gujarat Titans to its fifth IPL title, in Ahmedabad on Sunday.

Nearly 19 summers back when a young Dhoni was making his first strides in India blue, a four-year-old Gill was taking stance on a vast farmland in Punjab’s Fazilka village on Pakistan border, with a handmade customised bat, prepared by his doting grandfather.

On Sunday, at the 1,32,000-seater Narendra Modi Stadium, the soon-to-be 42 Dhoni will have one last assignment in his favourite Canary Yellow jersey – to stop Indian cricket’s megastar-in-waiting and do a ‘High Five’.

Three hundreds and 851 runs don’t happen every season but on a batting belter at the Motera, what will be Dhoni’s strategy to rein in the ‘Mohali Marauder’?

Will it be Deepak Chahar’s swing or Ravindra Jadeja’s wicket-to-wicket bowling? Or will it be Moeen Ali, who could be the ‘Joker in the Pack’ with his enticing flighted deliveries outside the off-stump which could sharply break back. Can Matheesha Pathirana bowl some incisive toe-crushers?

A technically near-perfect batter against a captain known for thinking out of the box. It can’t get more exciting than this.

His die-hard fans might expect him to come back again next year but even Dhoni, who has played the entire season with a heavily strapped left knee might find it extremely difficult to keep up with the demands of the shortest format.

So for every ‘Thala’ (elder brother in Tamil) fan, it’s all about savoring the Dhoni moments till it lasts. In this CSK set-up, he could afford to bat at No. 8 in most games but entering the finals with a bowling line-up that missed Deepak Chahar for the better part of first half and had to turn a profligate Tushar Deshpande into a dependable wicket-taker.

Turning an inconsistent Shivam Dube into a six-hitting bully or overseeing the return of Ravindra Jadeja, the T20 bowler, the legend of Dhoni will never cease to exist. It will only grow and his captaincy stories will also be burnished with coats of myth decades down the line.

They say familiarity breeds contempt but contempt would be the last word in Dhoni and CSK’s mind when they face Hardik Padya’s Titans.

The CSK logo features a “Roaring Lion” but they would take the team from Land of Gir Forest lightly at their own peril.

After 73 games, the two of the most consistent teams are pitted against each other in the summit clash.

No team has emulated the structural and team building ethos of Chennai Super Kings as minutely as Gujarat Titans, another team, where cricketing decisions are based on sound logic, consistency and no interference from overbearing owners.

There is a skipper in Pandya, who believes that there is only one way to lead the team. It’s called ‘The Mahi Way’.

Batters win matches but bowlers win tournaments is an old saying and it couldn’t be more apt when one tracks Titans’ performance.

Mohammed Shami (28 wickets), Rashid Khan (27 wickets) and Mohit Sharma (24 wickets) have executed plans more often than not and thus it hasn’t really effected the Titans that second highest run-scorer after Gill’s 851 runs is skipper Hardik Pandya (325), who is more than 500 runs behind.

Wriddhiman Saha, a keeper-par-excellence, woukd consider himself lucky, that team management never thought of replacing him despite a strike-rate of 127 opening the batting and only one fifty plus score in 16 knocks.

And herein, Dhoni would try to seize the opportunity. If they can get Gill out early, none of the other batters have shown wherewithal to fight hard and bowlers would need a decent total on board.

Under Dhoni, if players like Ajinkya Rahane (299 runs in 13 matches, two fifties) and Shivam Dube have found their groove this season, young bowlers such as Sri Lanka’s Matheesha Pathirana (17 wickets in 15 matches) and India’s uncapped Tushar Deshpande (21 wickets in 15 matches) have also been able to find their feet at the IPL stage.

In CSK’s batting line-up, Devon Conway (625 runs in 15 matches, six fifties) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (564 runs in 15 matches, four fifties) have time and again provided CSK with resolute starts at the top.

The big-hitting Dube (386 runs in 15 matches, three fifties) is the second joint-highest six-hitter for CSK in this IPL with 33 sixes, joined by Gill in the list.

There are no clear favourites and it could be one of the finest finals in history of IPL.

Teams (from):

Gujarat Titans:

Hardik Pandya (c), Shubman Gill, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Sai Sudharsan, Wriddhiman Saha, Matthew Wade, Rashid Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Mohammed Shami, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Pradeep Sangwan, Darshan Nalkande, Jayant Yadav, R. Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Dasun Shanaka, Odean Smith, KS Bharat, Shivam Mavi, Urvil Patel, Joshua Little and Mohit Sharma.

Chennai Super Kings:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (c&wk), Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Moeen Ali, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Sisanda Magala, Shivam Dube, Dwaine Pretorius, Ajay Mandal, Nishant Sindhu, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Mitchell Santner, Subhranshu Senapati, Simarjeet Singh, Matheesha Pathirana, Mahesh Theekshana, Bhagath Verma, Prashant Solanki, Shaikh Rasheed, Tushar Deshpande.

(PTI)
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