Somerset To Sponsor Sri Lankan Domestic Cricket
Sri Lankan domestic cricket received a massive boost when Somerset Entertainment Ventures Ltd, a Singaporean company agreed to sponsor domestic cricket in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758. Starting from 2011, Somerset will sponsor the four day league, limited overs and Twenty20 for the next five years. The three formats will come under one competition, which will be known as Sri Lanka Premier League. The sponsors have agreed to a sum of $1.75 million a year for the development of the three tournaments.
Previously known as the Inter-Provincial Tournament, it will now be called the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL). The tournament currently has some of the top most Sri Lankan cricketers participating, representing their various provinces. The SLPL will have five teams participating in three formats for the top position, which means that the different formats will not have separate winners. The point is to provide a platform for cricketers to exhibit and improve their talents in the different formats.
Sandeep Bhammer, the chairman CEO of Somerset Entertainment Ventures Ltd said in a press conference, “We partnered Sri Lanka Cricket to revamp the cricket infrastructure played in the country. The new tournament will be called the new Sri Lankan Premier League.” He revealed how Somerset had presented recommendations to Sri Lanka Cricket, one of which was to take teams that represent the diverse provinces and then allow foreign players to participate. He said that the team that won the Premier League would be the team to earn the highest points across all the formats of the game, instead of just one.
“This has been actually been thought of with a lot of consideration because there has been a lot of focus to just one area of cricket which is essentially the T20 format. We believe that youngsters in Sri Lanka excel across all formats and to that extent the way we've designed the league is to effectively give maximum number of points to the four-day format, followed by the one-day format and the minimum number of points to the T20 format. In any case the team that wins the independent individual T20 format has to compensate itself by essentially going and playing in the Champions League. The idea is to create a robust cricket structure.” Bhammer said.
It was decided that the tournament would be held in two different times of the year, the Twenty20 and one-day tournaments would be played together and the four-day tournament separately. Twenty20 and the 50 over format was planned to be held in December and January while July and August were reserved for the four-day format.
Bhammer said the idea behind the scheme was to improve the quality of domestic cricket played in Sri Lanka and make sure that the local Sri Lankan players were given a chance to display their skills in all the different formats. He also said it was important to make sure that the clubs, which provide players who eventually make it to the national team, benefit.
Kunal Bhargava, the Chief Operating Officer for Somerset Entertainment Ventures told reporters that they had appointed Total Sports Asia, which is the leading sports marketing agency and content distributor, as the representative for all commercial arrangements. He said they aimed to revolutionize cricket in Sri Lanka, and encourage the development of domestic cricket in Sri Lanka to make it into a popular tournament which would be watched all over the world.
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