Cricket Masala

Nuwan Thushara isn’t just fighting for a spot in the IPL. He’s fighting for the right to work.

The Sri Lanka fast bowler filed a lawsuit in the Colombo District Court last week against Sri Lanka Cricket after the board denied him a no-objection certificate to join Royal Challengers Bengaluru for IPL 2026. The reason? He failed SLC’s newly tightened fitness tests. Thushara’s argument cuts straight to the bone — his central contract expires on March 31, 2026, and after that, he isn’t planning to continue in international cricket. So why, he asks, should SLC’s internal selection policies have any hold over him at all?

It’s a question that Sri Lankan courts — and cricket administrators worldwide — are going to have to take seriously.

The Fitness Test That Started It All

SLC’s new fitness requirements didn’t come out of nowhere. Following Sri Lanka’s dismal showing at the recent Men’s T20 World Cup, the selection committee under former fast bowler Pramodya Wickramasinghe pushed for stricter physical benchmarks. The test has five components: a 2km run, 20-metre sprint, 5-0-5 agility drill, skinfold measurement, and counter movement jump. Players need at least 17 of a possible 29 points to stay in contention.

The 2km run and skinfold test carry the most weight. “If you fare poorly in those two, it will be very hard to pass,” a SLC source told ESPNcricinfo. These tests have existed since 2021. But they were used as a rough guide — a tiebreaker between similarly matched players, not a hard gate. That changed this year. The England and Wales Cricket Board went through a similar shift around 2022-23, quietly tightening physical and availability criteria attached to its NOC process for county players seeking Hundred and overseas deals. The friction it created with players who felt the criteria had retroactively changed the terms of their careers was noticeable enough that the ECB had to clarify the policy publicly — a move SLC has so far declined to make.

SLC granted him NOCs in 2024 and 2025 without issue. Same physical condition. Same player. The goalposts moved. He didn’t!

What the ICC Rules Actually Say — and Don’t Say

Here’s where it gets tangled. ICC regulations require players to hold a valid NOC from their home board to participate in overseas leagues. But the ICC doesn’t define what conditions a board must use to grant or deny that certificate. That’s left straight to the individual board’s discretion.

So SLC is technically within the framework, and boards have used that latitude before — SLC itself has previously denied NOCs based on participation limits, capping players at two overseas leagues per year. The BCCI has historically taken the most expansive view of this discretion, just not granting NOCs to centrally contracted Indian players for any overseas T20 competition — a position that has never been legally challenged but has functioned as a near-total restriction on player movement for those under contract.

More instructively, Bangladesh Cricket Board moved in 2017 to block several of its players from joining the Caribbean Premier League, citing national team preparation needs. Players including Mohammad Mahmudullah and Mosaddek Hossain were caught in those restrictions. The BCB’s justification was sporting. Critics at the time noted the policy happened to limit players’ earning power during a period when the BCB was also trying to retain those players on domestic terms. The ICC’s silence on specific criteria gives boards noticeable room to maneuver.

But room to maneuver isn’t the same as unlimited authority; and that’s exactly what Thushara’s legal team is betting on.

A Case With No Clean Precedent — Almost

The closest comparison is Tabraiz Shamsi’s fight against Cricket South Africa in December 2025. Shamsi, uncentrally contracted and having exited his SA20 franchise deal, wanted a full-duration NOC to play in the rival International League T20. CSA refused. The Johannesburg High Court didn’t agree with CSA’s position, issuing an interim order forcing them to release the NOC. The ruling went further than a procedural fix. The court found that, when the player had no active obligations to either the board or the franchise, using the ICC’s NOC framework to protect a board’s own commercial tournament interests amounted to bad faith. That ruling landed hard across cricket’s administrative world. It said, without ambiguity, that contractual freedom matters. That a board doesn’t own a player simply because it once did.

Thushara’s case pushes into even less charted territory. Shamsi’s dispute was about commercial protectionism. Thushara’s is about whether a board can apply its own internal selection criteria — fitness standards designed for national team selection — to a player that has essentially said out loud that he’s stepping away from international cricket entirely.

The Real Legal Question Here

SLC named four of its top officials as defendants — president Shammi Silva, secretary Bandula Dissanayake, treasurer Sujeewa Godaliyadda, and CEO Ashley de Silva. The case is next scheduled for April 9, after Sri Lanka’s Easter court closure. And even then, one hearing isn’t going to resolve anything. Thushara has already lost weeks.

Thing is, the timing has almost certainly cost him the season already.

But the case itself will outlast the IPL. What’s being tested here is whether a board can enforce selection-oriented policies — designed to determine who represents the nation — on a player who has chosen not to represent the nation. There’s a logical gap between “you must be fit to wear the Sri Lanka jersey” and “you must be fit to wear a Bengaluru jersey.” SLC is conflating the two. Thushara’s lawyers argue that conflation is what’s blocking his ability to earn a living.

What This Means for Cricket’s Player Ecosystem

The Shamsi ruling established that boards can’t weaponise the NOC system for commercial self-interest when a player has no active obligations. If Thushara wins — or even scores a partial legal victory — it extends that principle further. It would mean domestic performance standards can’t travel with a player once they’ve walked out the door.

Worth paying attention to. Several boards have leaned on internal policy as justification for NOC decisions that have little to do with international cricket readiness and more to do with controlling player movement.

The legal parallel that cricket administrators least want to hear cited in these proceedings is the 1995 Bosman ruling in European football. Jean-Marc Bosman, a Belgian midfielder, challenged UEFA’s transfer rules after his club blocked his move to a French team despite his contract having expired. The European Court found in his favor. Restraint-of-trade restrictions on out-of-contract players, the court ruled, violated European labour law — and European football’s entire transfer ecosystem was rewritten as a result. Cricket has no equivalent ruling yet. Thushara’s case won’t reach that scale — but the legal logic underneath is the same. A ruling against SLC wouldn’t just help Thushara. It would reshape how boards across the sport handle the whole NOC system.

Sri Lanka cricket has had a rough year on and off the field. And now one of its fast bowlers has taken them to court.

The April 9 hearing won’t end this.

But it’s the start of something that could.