CA Worried as SLC Cuts Security Costs for Australian tour of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Cricket’s financial situation has left Cricket Australia rather worried. Given that the Australian team is set to tour Sri Lanka, yet again questions abound about security concerns.

Sri Lanka v Australia cricket

In an already volatile world, Australia had previously harboured concerns over touring Sri Lanka. It even led to Australia forfeiting a league match during the ICC Cricket World Cup 1996 that Sri Lanka eventually went onto win. And it appears some of those concerns over security measures have returned but for a different reason.

It is not with any particular threat in mind other than the bane of terrorism around the world that concerns any touring party, be it a cricket team or otherwise. In the past, Sri Lanka’s skirmishes with the LTTE outfit left Australian cricket on shaky ground. However, this time round, the concerns stem from no particular threat but rather from the kind of security they may come to expect as a result of Sri Lanka’s dwindling finances with respect to their cricket board.

The Sri Lankan cricket board has made no bones about the fact that their board has suffered huge financial losses as a result of co hosting the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. Reeling from having to refurbish stadiums and build new ones in certain places, the Sri Lankan cricket board is now openly stating that the board is under a huge financial crunch.

In that regard, Sri Lanka is going to be heavily dependent on several revenue sources including hosting the bilateral series, letting the Sri Lankan cricketers play in foreign Twenty20 leagues such as the IPL for a percentage of the pay cut and even hosting its own Twenty20 version of the IPL in the form of the SLPL ( Sri Lankan Premier League ). However, it will be awhile before Sri Lanka cricket’s finances take a turn for the better. The board is reportedly in debt by in double digit million dollar figures.

As a result, the Sri Lankan cricket board has spoken out about cutting its budgets to a third of the original cost intended for home bilateral series. That would be a significant scaling down of freebies but also, for security budget for Australia’s tour of Sri Lanka, which has greatly rattled the former. Australia are not comfortable with the idea that amongst the many austerity steps being taken, security is also set to suffer a serious budget cut.

The Sri Lankan cricket board’s defense is that the war with the LTTE is over and in the absence of civil strife, Sri Lanka has enough adept security measures to handle the full tour and therefore, the budget cut should not compromise on the measures provided. It is a tricky situation Sri Lanka find themselves in because on the one hand, they would need to maximize these bilateral series to recover some of the losses but on the other hand, they cannot compromise on the quality of the security or about profiling the series in the manner that they will hurt their revenue opportunities.