Sri Lanka cricket authorities yesterday announced that the Indian cricket team will play a tri-nation ODI competition in August this year with New Zealand being the third team. The brief series will be played soon after Pakistan’s tour of Sri Lanka, which involves three Test Matches and five One-Day Internationals.

The first round will involve just three games and the teams with most wins and better net run rates would qualify for the finals of the tournament.

Sri Lanka has been playing India quite frequently in recent times. After the scheduled three Test and five ODI series last year, the Indian team were here early this year for a five match ODI series on an invitation from Sri Lanka Cricket to help the local board come out of a financial crisis.

The sale of television contracts, the main form of income for the local board, however, later came as a bone of contention after Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge controversially handed the telecasting rights of the series to Indian based Nimbus Pvt. Ltd. a company that had been blacklisted by SLC. The television company however, has not paid a signinifcat portion of the payment running in for millions of US $.