In the end, it did come as a surprise that the Sri Lankan Premier League (SLPL) has been postponed to 2012. In its place, the Sri Lankan cricket board has decided to go ahead with the inter-provincial T20 tournament, that will be played to decide the qualifying team for the Champions League T20 qualifiers.
Indian Player Pullout Cancels Sri Lankan Premier League
According to reports, the SLPL will now be played in August 2012.
The issue followed the Indian cricket board’s (BCCI) decision to disallow the Indian players from participating in the SLPL. This directive came after the BCCI had had no issues earlier, but it was then revealed that the board was worried that the tournament was being organised by Lalit Modi or one of his close aides.
The organisation of the SLPL had been outsourced to the Somerset Entertainment Ventures (SEV), which was alleged to be the bone of contention. BCCI claimed that they will not allow its players to participate in tournaments which were privately organised but the Sri Lankan board refuted that claim, explaining that SEV was only a marketing arm for the tournament.
However, later, in a meeting with the Indian cricket board, the Sri Lankan board realised that it was the Modi-issue that was the sticking point. Modi, who had been a former chairman of the Indian Premier League, had been sacked unceremoniously by the BCCI for alleged misappropriation of funds and has been, ever since, locked in a battle with the board.
With the Indians not participating for the SLPL, it would have meant that there would be difficulties to sell the broadcasting to the Indian fans, that would have constituted a majority of the broadcasting revenues. That would have left the cash-strapped Lankan board with no option but to dig into their barely-existent reserves to pay the other foreign players.
Left with no option, the Sri Lankan board finally decided to cancel the SLPL this year.
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