Sri Lanka Cricket News: SSC to have floodlights, BCCI''s ''No'' to T20I charity games

Colombo, Jan 2 (PTI) India's planned tour of Sri Lanka in August with two Tests and a couple of T20Is will go ahead as per plan but BCCI has apparently turned down SLC's request playing a couple of shortest format charity games in December to raise funds for victims affected by Cyclone Ditwah, chairman Shammi Silva told reporters.

Sri Lanka as a country faced losses to the tune of USD 1.6 billion with 600 people losing their lives.

“We discussed a tour for two games on December 27 and 29 in aid of Ditwah cyclone reconstruction but could not finalize arrangements on the commercial side in time," Silva told reporters.

He said a full tour would go ahead in August for two Tests and two T20 internationals.

The SLC boss said the proceeds from the three T20 internationals happening next week against Pakistan in the central town of Dambulla would be donated to the cyclone recovery fund.

Day/Night Test in near future at Sinhalese Sports Club ground ============================================ Silva informed governing body’s preparations for the men’s T20 World Cup starting next month is on full swing. The main preparation being the on going refurbishment of the iconic SSC grounds.

“We are spending 1.75 billion LKR for installing flood lights in the short term”, Sujeewa Godaliyadda, the SLC treasurer said.

He said the pylons were imported from India and the lighting will come from Italy for the centuries old venue where the SLC headquarters are located.

There will be additional improvements in the long term like enhancing the spectator capacity to 30,000 from the current 20,000.

SlC CEO Samantha Dodanwela said the SLC recognition of the ground was long overdue as it was the club with the best facilities in the city.

“In the long term we could hope to host the day night Tests here”, Dodanwela said.

However contrary to reports by some newswire outlets, none of the SLC official ever spoke about having any day/night Test against India.

SSC will host the first match of the World Cup with a day game between Pakistan and Netherlands on February 7. Additionally four more games are scheduled at the ground which was the venue of Sri Lanka’s first official ODI at home versus England in 1982. PTI NIL KHS KHS