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Sri Lankan cricket bosses were on Monday trying to calculate the costs of its ill-fated series that was aborted after early monsoon showers allowed only 22 deliveries to be bowled in a week.

A planned tri-series featuring India and South Africa was reduced to a Sri Lanka-India contest after the South Africans withdrew in the wake of a bomb blast near the team hotel that killed seven persons.

Persistent rain continued to frustrate the cricketers, and Cricket Sri Lanka decided to abort the series on Sunday after the first two games of a three-match series were washed out. The organizers were hoping to reschedule the series for next year.

“We’re still working out how much this cancelled series has cost us,” Cricket Sri Lanka’s chief executive, Duleep Mendis told on Monday. “But we’re hopeful of recovering the losses when the tri-series is rescheduled next year,” he added.

The Sri Lankan board was frustrated as the weather wasn’t relenting and consulted with the Indian team before cancelling the tournament. Just 16 minute of batting was witnessed over three days of the Sri Lanka-India series, despite the provision of a reserve day for each match. Cricket Sri Lanka eventually decided against persisting with the teams going to the stadium every day and coming back to the hotel without a ball being delivered.

Mendis said he was looking for a slot next year that fitted into the international schedules of both South Africa and India. “We would love to schedule the tri-series before the World Cup in March-April, but it might happen only after May,” Mendis said.

The rain-affected matches proved to be a big embarrassment for the organizers, who had decided to play all games in Colombo. Cricket Sri Lanka decided against matches in the central town of Dambulla, which is less affected by rain and has a stadium built to avoid matches getting washed out. When the organizers made a late attempt to switch some games back to Dambulla, the touring teams were reluctant to play there.

Source:The News

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