Sri Lanka: Qualifying round to resolve issue (22 Sep 1998)

22 September 1998

Qualifying round to resolve issue

by Sa'adi Thawfeeq

A forceful stand made by half a dozen division One Sara Trophy clubs on the matter of being included to play in the Sri Lanka Cricket Board's new tournament, the Premier Club championship, resulted in the Executive Committee ruling for a qualifying round of matches to be played to resolve the issue.

Thus, the rebellious six clubs, Sebastianites, Antonians SC, Matara SC, Panadura SC, Singha SC, and Police SC will play each other in a one-round league basis in the months of November and December, after which the top two teams will join ten other clubs to play in the Premier Club championship next season. All matches will be of two days duration.

As a result of this new move, the originally planned Premier Club limited-over tournament scheduled for the same months has been indefinitely postponed.

The tournament committee had scheduled the one-day tournament in these months, to give the national cricketers practice ahead of the World Series Cup tournament in Australia in January. But that is now only a forlorn thought.

"We are now hoping to fit in the tournament sometime in April, after the Premier Club championships, to give the national cricketers some practice prior to the World Cup in England," said tournament committee chairman Carlton Bernadus.

"The proposal to play the Premier Club championship with nine teams was approved by the former Ex-Co. All what the new tournament committee did was to submit the same proposal to the present Ex-Co, who wanted the teams increased to 12," said Bernadus.

"However, the clubs who would not qualify for the top league were not happy with the idea and despite having discussions with the president of the Board and with me, some of them threatened to seek legal action. The ExCo thus, decided to give all of them a fair chance by playing a qualifying round," he said.

The top four clubs in each of the two groups in last season's Sara trophy qualify automatically, with Galle CC coming in as the ninth club on the grounds that they were the Segment 'B' champions last year. Kurunegala YCC have been invited to become the tenth team, leaving the last two places to be decided by the qualifying tournament.

Source :: Daily News (https://www.lanka.net)