South Africa cricketers condemn Sri Lanka salary delay

South Africa's cricketers have lent their support to the Sri Lanka players, who have not been paid their salaries for eight months, saying it was a credit to the Sri Lanka team that they had kept going but the issue needed to be resolved soon.

South Africa are set to host Sri Lanka for Tests & ODIs, but Graeme Smith & AB de Villiers, the Check & ODI captain respectively, selected to speak out against the Sri Lankan board, who have withheld their players' salaries due to a extreme financial crunch.

Sri Lanka Cricket is waiting on payments of around US$ four.3 million from the ICC for co-hosting the World Cup, but that will only arrive after the ICC complete their audit & the ICC have said it is SLC's responsibility to pay their players. "In this age of professionalism in cricket this type of thing ought to not be happening," de Villiers said. "It's a credit to the players that they have kept playing for their country since March despite all of this. They hope it gets sorted out soon."

"We require to show our support for Tillakaratne Dilshan & our fellow professional cricketers from Sri Lanka on this issue," Smith said in a South African Cricketers' Association (SACA) release. "It is far from ideal that the Sri Lankan team is about to start a hard Check series & ODI series here in South Africa without having been paid any of their remuneration for the last eight months."

The Sri Lankan Cricketers' Association (SLCA) has contacted the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) to seek assistance on what can be done to make positive the players are paid, & SACA's chief-executive Tony Irish said they hoped for positive progress before Sri Lanka started their tour game against South Africa A on December 9. "It's difficult to understand how a board which has co-hosted the ICC Cricket World Cup can find itself in such a desperate financial situation that it cannot pay its national team of fully contracted professionals for months on end", Irish said. "We know that the players association in Sri Lanka is doing what it can to sort this out for the players & they hope for some positive progress before the first match of the tour starts against."

SLC has been in a financial crisis following the construction of new stadiums in Hambantota & Pallekele, & the renovation of the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo for the World Cup.

Meanwhile, the stadiums were handed over to the military earlier this month because the board was struggling to maintain them. The World Cup had left SLC in debt to the tune of $23 million & the board had to ask for a grant from the Sri Lanka government.

Upali Dharmadasa, the chairman of SLC's interim committee, was critical of the earlier administration for spending expansively on those stadiums. They had said they was hopeful the players would be paid soon as they understood that the ICC audit had been done & SLC would get the remainder of the World Cup payment due to them.