Sri Lanka unhappy with ‘unfair’ travel schedule

Sri Lanka players and management are unhappy with their "unfair" travel schedule in the ICC T20 World Cup, where they are one of only two teams alongside the Netherlands who will be playing their four group-stage matches in four different venues.

The Lankans started their World Cup campaign on Monday with a six-wicket defeat to South Africa in New York and were in a rush after the game to get to Dallas, where they will face Bangladesh on June 8.

Immediately after the South Africa match, they had to rush to their hotel in Brooklyn, an hour-and-a-half away, pack, check out, and then make their 6:00 pm flight to Dallas.

Earlier, they had to wait for seven hours at the Miami airport to take their delayed flight to New York to play this match.

Sri Lanka's team manager Mahinda Halangoda confirmed that they had written to the ICC about the travel schedule, but conceded that it was too late to do anything about it.

"So unfair for us, we have to leave every day [after the match] because we are playing [at] four different venues," Sri Lanka spinner Maheesh Theekshana was quoted saying by Cricinfo.

"It's unfair. The flight we took from Florida, from Miami, we had to wait like eight hours in the airport to get the flight. And we came around. We were supposed to leave at 8pm but we got the flight at 5am. It's really unfair for us, but it doesn't matter when you play [on the field]." He added.

Meanwhile, South Africa and India are scheduled to play three of their first round matches in New York and are lodging in nearby facilities.

Although Theekshana and Co didn't want to use their travel hassles as an excuse for the defeat against the Proteas, they spoke about how the current schedule has put them in a disadvantageous position.

"I can't say the names of the teams that have got the opportunity to stay in the same place but their hotel is only 14 minutes to the ground. Ours was like one hour and 40 minutes.

"I can't say the [names of the] teams that are playing in the same venue, so they know what the conditions are like. They're playing practice games at the same venue. No one will get that. We played the practice games in Florida, and our third game's in Florida.

"There's some things that I think that everyone will rethink about next year because I know that this year, nothing will change. Our management is trying to fix today's [Monday] flight also because we are playing, we have to pack everything and [leave]. We woke up around 5:30 am to come here, and [it plays on the mind, what] if we miss something here [while packing in a hurry]."