Sri Lanka's cricket board has introduced an elite tournament to try to make the domestic game more competitive and to develop international players.
The existing 18-team first-class club competition has been streamlined to allow time for a four-team provincial tournament involving the 60 best players in the country.
Administrators hope that the competition will halt a decline in the quality of domestic cricket and better equip players for the demands of international cricket.
"We identified a concern over the big gap that exits in Sri Lanka between the domestic and international cricket," Bandulla Dissanayake, the tournament secretary of Sri Lanka Cricket, told reporters.
"The lack of exposure to high quality, competitive cricket is making it hard for cricketers when they start playing international cricket," he explained.
"We thought we should have another tier in the domestic structure where the best 60 players played against each other with the best possible facilities."
The 60 players will be selected by the national selection committee and divided into four teams -- Western, Northern, Central and Southern Province.
The players will be paid and a coach, selector, physiotherapist and trainer will be allocated to each side.
Teams will play four-day matches against each other twice, on a home and away basis.
The tournament is scheduled to start in January after England's tour to Sri Lanka in November and December and before Australia's arrival in February.
