Sri Lankan players are uncomfortable with their head coach Mickey Arthur, who has been accused of favoritism, being involved with the new points system for the proposed performance-based contracts.

According to the reports, Sri Lanka cricketers are unhappy with head coach Mickey Arthur and can no longer trust their coach.

International media wrote, “Sri Lankan players seem to have lost confidence in the coach, who they say cannot be trusted,”

They added, “This is a serious issue going forward as lack of trust between the two parties would derail whatever plans implemented to take cricket forward.”

According to the media, the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) board and the players are embroiled in a contract dispute, with the players calling for a more transparent and less subjective grading system than what has been presented by SLC’s technical committee headed by Aravinda de Silva.

The new SLC central agreements will see a reduced number of overall agreements handed out and a significant decrease in salaries, in addition to monetary incentives and contracts allocated based on a points system for winning matches, fitness, leadership, professionalism, and future potential and adaptability.

This newly introduced grading system was used by Coach Mickey, the selection panel, and the physical performance manager to award the contentious contracts, which the players unanimously rejected even when faced with the threat of suspension.

Media wrote, “Although cricketers had principally agreed to take a pay cut given the global economic environment due to the global health crisis, they weren’t happy with how the 24 players had been graded,”

They added, “For instance, former skipper and all format player Angelo Mathews was graded in A-2 with a retainer value of $ 80,000 while Test skipper Dimuth Karunaratne was graded further down in A-3 with a base value of $ 70,000. Both Mathews and Karunaratne along with Suranga Lakmal, who was offered a B-1 contract, have performed reasonably well during the two years in consideration.”

They concluded, “The players also find it hard to understand how Niroshan Dickwella gets a top category A contract when he has not performed well in the ODI format, and how Pathum Nissanka and Kasun Rajitha leapfrogged to the $55,000 and $50,000 pay brackets despite playing too little international cricket. And, how Nuwan Pradeep, Sri Lanka’s leading bowler in T20 cricket could not find a place in any of the four categories,”

In addition to the emerging rift between players and the coach over contracts, Mickey was also recently involved in a fight with Bhanuka Rajapaksa that played out in the media.

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