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By Sa'adi Thawfeeq

There was relief and smiles all-round at the Cricket Board headquarters yesterday after the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) interim committee and the Sri Lanka World Cup squad along with their representative from the Sri Lanka Cricketers Association (SLCA) finally arrived at a compromise over payments and, the players agreed to sign the Player Contracts as required by the International Cricket Council (ICC) prior to the World Cup.

The end result is that Sri Lanka will be represented at full strength at next month's 2003 World Cup in Africa.

There was one and half hour's deliberation before both parties agreed on a compromise, which ended over a month's tension and worry whether Sri Lanka will send their full side or if it came to the worst, a second string team to the World Cup.

The ICC was fully behind the BCCSL and even gave them permission to replace any player who refused to sign and to go to the extent of sending a fresh team for the World Cup.

The compromise is that the players will receive a 12 percent flat fee and performance incentives on a sliding scale for the World Cup. The 12 percent is to cover whatever commercial rights the players will lose by way of advertising during the World Cup.

The performance incentives for the team work out in the following manner:

*For a win in the Pool matches - US$ 15,000 (6 Pool B matches)

*Win in the Super Six - one percent (1%) of guarantee money (3 matches in Super Six)

*Win in the semi-finals - one percent (1%) of guarantee money (1 match)

*Win in final - one percent (1%) of guarantee money (1 match).

However the most pertinent point to come out of the negotiations was the two percent (2%) request from the guarantee money made by the SLCA to be distributed to all division I club cricketers. BCCSL interim committee chairman Hemaka Amarasuriya said: "Now that the issue has been resolved I hope the boys will get their act together and do their best to win the World Cup".

Initially the players wanted a 20 percent cut of the guarantee money of US$ 6.5 million, which the BCCSL will be receiving from the World Cup. This figure was totally unacceptable to the Cricket Board who said they needed the money for the development and infrastructure of the game for the next four years until the next World Cup was held.

Negotiations started taking place while the Sri Lanka cricketers were in Australia, but both parties failed to compromise. The issue dragged on for more than a month and was finally resolved only after the cricketers returned from Australia yesterday.

Amarasuriya, CEO Anura Tennekoon and interim committee members Nalin Ladduwahetty, Ranjith Madurasinghe and Laurence Amerasena represented the BCCSL.

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