Sri Lanka’s Twenty20 League Scrapped After Franchise Holders Default

Sri Lanka’s Twenty20 League has been made defunct after franchise holders defaulted thereby failing to guarantee player salaries.

The Twenty20 league had its inaugural season last August even managing to recruit a handful of big-name international players, including the West Indies’ Chris Gayle and Pakistani player Shahid Afridi.

Sri Lanken Cricket removed the seven franchise holders who failed to fulfil their roles and additionally cancelled the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL).

SLPL Director Ajit Jayasekera said: “We will not have the tournament this year because the seven Indian franchise holders did not pay despite verbal and sometimes written assurances that they will,” Jayasekera said. “We could not go on indefinitely.”

The seven franchises, all held by Indian companies, failed to meet several deadlines to pay nearly $3 million. The firms’ financial statuses are not known and it is unclear why they had not made the payments.

“We had to decide. And we have decided to terminate franchise agreements and not have the tournament this year,” he said.

Sri Lanka Cricket released a brief one-paragraph statement which read: “the Mahindra SLPL 2013 will not take place”.

Jayasekera commented that the sport authority hopes to create a new model for the Twenty20 tournament next year.