SLC Inter-Provincial tournament to miss star power

The longer version of Sri Lanka Cricket’s (SLC) three provincial tournaments - the four-day matches - commences on Thursday but will feature none of the key national players, who are doing duty in the ongoing IPL. The first-class tournament will not only be missing some glamour but will be without a sixth team - the SLC Combined XI, comprising mainly schoolboy cricketers who got good exposure playing along with the established stars in the Provincial Twenty20 and limited-overs tournaments. Chandima Mapatuna, the manager for the SLC tournaments, said the junior cricketers were given the due exposure at the concluded provincial limited-overs and Twenty20 tournaments and that there was no necessity to expose them further in the longer game. "This decision was made clear even before the commencement of the 2009-10 Inter-Provincial tournament," said Mapatuna. "We allowed the juniors to play in the shorter versions of the game and there is no reason to continue them in the four-day tournament as schoolboys are not playing anything beyond two-day cricket.   www.cricinfo.com/sldomestic-09/content/story/452295.html