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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkdood" data-source="post: 10477941" data-attributes="member: 92282"><img src="http://sports.ndtv.com/images/stories/15062011/mahindananda300.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Sri Lanka's cash-strapped cricket administration has slashed the budget  for Australia's tour, the island's sports minister said on Sunday,  stressing security would not be compromised.Australia are due to  play three Tests, five one-day matches and two Twenty20 games during  their August 6 to September 20 tour of Sri Lanka."We are taking  austerity measures because we can't even recover the monies we are  spending," minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage said."Lots of frills like distributing hundreds of free tickets and banquet meals for invitees will be cut," Aluthgamage said.Sri  Lanka Cricket (SLC) had budgeted 300 million rupees ($2.8 million) but  the projected income was a "dismal" 150 million rupees.Sri Lanka  now hopes to spend about 100 million rupees instead on the tour, said  the minister, who has moved to overhaul the cricket administration amid  allegations of massive corruption and mismanagement.Security  will not be compromised, he said, after ordering the SLC to trim the  50-million-rupee security bill to just nine million rupees.Despite  ending a decades-long ethnic conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels in May  2009, Sri Lanka maintains tight security for visiting teams that  includes commandos from the military and private security guards."There  is no war now, and I think there is enough officers in the military and  police that could assure us very good security, at a fraction of the  cost," he said.The newly built Pallakelle International Stadium  in the central town of Kandy will host the Twenty20 games as well as the  opening one-dayer and the second Test match.Another new cricket  facility in the southern town of Hambantota will host two one-day  games. Both venues were built for the 2011 World Cup.Aluthgamage  has promised a new set of administrators after the current tour of  England ends in early July as part of his shake-up of the sport's  governing body."I am inundated with reports that allege the  committee had helped themselves to money, mismanaged funds. We are  investigating all these allegations," he said.Aluthgamage this  month sought government approval to allow SLC to seek an unprecedented  two-billion-rupee bailout from the treasury and a further  1.5-billion-rupee loan from a state-run bank.This month, police  Criminal Investigations Department were called to probe the  disappearance of computer disks containing some of the financial  accounts relating to the 2011 World Cup the island co-hosted with India  and Bangladesh.Cost overruns and building three stadiums for the  tournament left the governing body with bills amounting to $69 million  which have forced them to seek the bailout.AFP</blockquote>

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