The Sri Lanka under 19 cricketers tour to West Indies for the Under 19 tri-series with West Indies and England was placed in jeopardy of being cancelled after the US Embassy in Sri Lanka refused visas of seven of the cricketers picked for the tour.
The team of 15 cricketers and nine officials were due to leave for the Caribbean today, but has been put off till the visa issue has been sorted out. The team was due to fly via USA to the West Indies.
Sri Lanka Cricket were frantically trying to find a way out of the unexpected situation they are currently placed as the tri-series is due to commence on December 6.
Sri Lanka Cricket secretary Mohan de Silva whilst confirming that the visas of seven players’ have been rejected said that they were trying to make an appeal to the US Embassy and reapply for the visas if not try and send five other players to make up the 15 in the squad.
“If worse comes to the worse we will forego the tour,” said De Silva yesterday.
Sri Lanka under 19 coach Hashan Tillakaratne said that the visas of five players picked in the original 15 plus two standby players have been rejected and that Sri Lanka Cricket were trying to find another route to get to the Caribbean or to have the rejected players replaced.
Further Sri Lanka Cricket has also made a request to Cricket West Indies to try and reschedule the tri-series dates by a few days to enable them to participate in the tournament.
Sri Lanka under 19 cricketers were due to play a practice match on December 3 before commencing the tournament with back to back matches against England U19 and West U19 on December 6 and 7 respectively, but due to the current situation may have to forego that and go straight into the competition.
The tri-series is a lead up to the ICC Under 19 World Cup which is to be held in South Africa from January 17 to February 9 and is being looked at by the three participating teams as the final warm-up before the big event.
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