Cricket: Abandoned tour could mean $3.5m loss for NZ Cricket

New Zealand Cricket is bracing itself to lose as much as $3.5 million from the abandoned Sri Lankan tour.

The full extent of the financial setback began to take shape yesterday after chief executive Martin Snedden conceded that his organisation faced the prospect of crippling losses from the postponement.

Expected to be the first half of NZ Cricket's summer international programme, the Sri Lankans rushed back home at the end of last month after news broke of the Boxing Day tsunamis.

Snedden said it was fair to suggest that the Sri Lankan tour represented about 40 per cent of NZ Cricket's income-generating possibilities for summer, and in a worst-case scenario, nothing would be recovered.

"It's very difficult for us to comment on the loss in any specific detail at the moment, not least because of commercially sensitive areas such as insurance and contractual claims," Snedden said.

NZ Cricket received just over $25 million cash from sponsorship, grants and other activities in the year to last May 31, a period that included last summer's home series against Pakistan and South Africa.

Snedden declined to estimate the total potential loss from this season's upheaval, but the Weekend Herald understands that a setback of $3 million to $3.5 million is feared if nothing can be salvaged.

His biggest task now is to ensure that the postponed tour can be rescheduled as soon as possible, so NZ Cricket can fulfil its television rights obligations.

Another is the pursuit of insurance claims against the loss of gate-takings, and the rush to organise a substitute one-day series against a World XI.

If all endeavours to minimise the losses fail, New Zealand's elite and first-class cricketers could face reduced earnings because their payment pool is calculated at 23.9 per cent of turnover.