Sri Lanka Cricket: SLC to deduct salaries if players cant match fitness guidelines?

Sri Lanka Cricket – SLC Tough Fitness Guidelines: Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) selectors have given very tough messages to their cricket team – ‘either shape-up or ship-out’. The selectors and the board have informed all contracted cricketers that they need to further improve the fitness standards or their contracted payments will be deducted. Follow all Latest Cricket News on InsideSport.IN

IPL 2022 Auction Dates: BCCI in a fix, ‘Mega Auctions can’t be held before 3rd week of January’, check why?

IPL 2022: After Andy Flower and KL Rahul, Lucknow franchise ropes in Gautam Gambhir as mentor

Sri Lanka Cricket gets very tough on fitness, ’annual contracted salaries to be deducted if players can’t run 2 KM in 8.35’

What are the new fitness bench-marks? SLC according to the reports in local media are introducing strict fitness benchmarks starting from January 2022. As per the new guidelines, players are being asked to complete 2KM run in 8.10 minutes. The existing targets for skin-fold test is also being revised for the national cricketers.

2KM Test Replaces YO-YO Test – New Guidelines

Above 8:55 Minutes – No Selection in the national squad
8:35 Minutes to 8:55 Minutes – Salary from the contracts to be deducted. Those who run below the benchmark up to 8.35 minutes will be eligible for selection but the Board may retain a percentage from the annual contract fee until the player reaches the expected target.
Under 8.10 Minutes for 2KM: New Fitness standards for the Sri Lanka squad. The selectors now want the national players to perform the 2km run within the expected benchmark of 8.10 minutes.
First Fitness Test on January 7th: First of the four fitness tests scheduled for the year will be held on January 7, 2022, where all contracted players will be asked to take part.
Random Testing: The players will be randomly tested on a monthly basis to check whether they are putting in the hard yards to maintain fitness.
New Levels for Skin-Fold Test: In addition, they have also lowered the skin-fold test levels to 70 from 85.

Sri Lanka Cricket: “If a player ran the 2km in 8.35 minutes in February, he should be able to do it under 8.10 minutes now. We want the players to really work hard on their fitness and we will not tolerate lapses in fitness,” Pramodya Wickremasinghe, the Chairman of Selectors was quoted by the Daily Star

“We have improved a lot in the past few months and we want them to improve it further in order to be more competitive”.

Sri Lanka Cricket: New Year, new targets, new fitness standards for the team

Sri Lankan team is due to travel to Australia in the month of February for 5 match T20 series followed by Tour of India. In the series vs India, Sri Lanka will play 2 test matches and 3 T20’s in the month of March.

Meanwhile SLC has also appointed Mahela Jayawardene as consultant coach of the Sri Lanka men’s senior team, as well as the men’s Under-19 and the Sri Lanka A teams for a period of one year, starting January 1, 2022.

“This is an exciting opportunity to work with the national cricketers and coaches in our various development squads, including the U19 and A teams, to help us do justice to the enormous cricketing talent and potential in Sri Lanka,” Jayawardene said in the statement. “I am very passionate about Sri Lankan cricket and believe that with a coordinated and focused team effort, taking a holistic approach working across all age groups, we can achieve consistent success in the future”