SLC Secretary, Nishantha Ranatunga Hints At Increasing the Number of Teams in Sri Lanka Premier League

Sri Lanka Cricket secretary, Mr. Nishantha Ranatunga, has hinted at increasing the number of provinces participating in the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL) to nine after the first few seasons.

The inaugural edition of the tournament, to be held in Sri Lanka in July-August this year, will include seven provinces of Sri Lanka.

The country has total of nine provinces and the two provinces that do not have a team this time include Rajarata and Sabaragamuwa. The SLC secretary assured that the exclusion of these two provinces will not last long and would be part of the national league after the first few seasons.

"We merely wanted to limit the number of teams to ensure competitiveness," said Ranatunga while talking to the media reporters on Tuesday.

"So far, we have had only five teams in our domestic provincial tournaments. We added North (Uthura) and East (Negenahira) for this first tournament, and as we progress with it in the next few seasons, we will add the other two provinces as well," he added.

The opening edition of the Sri Lanka Premier League will start at the end of the July this year and will last for more than 18 days.

Although Sri Lanka built two new stadiums in Hambantota and Pallekele for the recently concluded ICC World Cup 2011, all of the SLPL fixtures will be hosted by the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.

When asked about the logic behind staging the whole tournament in one stadium, Ranatunga said that the logistical issues prompted them to use only one stadium.

He further added that they had to finish everything within a time frame of two to three weeks and it would be pretty tiresome for the players to travel heavily in the short period.

The SLC secretary said that keeping in mind all these aspects, they had no option but to limit the league to Colombo.

SLPL, like the Indian Premier League and the revised format of the Big Bash in Australia, will not feature city-based teams. Ranatunga said that the province-based teams would allow the teams of the whole province to link up.