The problems in front of Sri Lanka Cricket continue as the Lanka Premier League is all set to be postponed due the foreign players’ unavailability and the recent terminations of three franchises.
“It is unfortunate that the tournament will have to be postponed. Be it Bangladesh, the West Indies, Pakistan or England players – none of them are available at this stage. Right now the new dates for the league are undecided, SLC will check the feasibility in next few weeks,”
the SLC official told the website.
The tournament was earlier slated to begin on July 30 at the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Stadium in Hambantota.
However, the unavailability of foreign players doesn’t seem to be the only concern for SLC right now. A recent report on Cricbuzz suggested that the association and the LPL organisers have decided to terminate the contract of the Jaffna franchise due to their non-compliance with contractual terms.
With this, Jaffna Stallions have become the 3rd out of 5 franchises to get terminated from LPL after Colombo Kings and Dambulla Viiking faced the same fate last month.
The postponement of LPL 2021 will also bring a new challenge for the SLC to find a proper window to conduct the tournament later this year. Sri Lanka will be busy playing a home series against India in July.
Caribbean Premier League is scheduled to begin on August 25, and the second leg of IPL 2021 is expected to begin in September, followed by the T20 World Cup from October up until the middle of November.
“We understand the calendar is completely packed, we will see if we can get some space. It’s too early to talk about it. The board will decide the way forward along with the organisers,”
an SLC official said in a statement.
The only possible opening to conduct LPL is seemingly at the end of November. In a similar situation last year, the tournament was held in November and December after being postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
