Cape Town - South African cricketers have added their voices to the call to the Sri Lankan Cricket board to settle the outstanding amounts due to the Sri Lankan players, the South African Cricket Association said in a statement on Saturday.

"We want to show our support for Tillakaratne Dilshan and our fellow professional cricketers from Sri Lanka on this issue," said Proteas Test captain, Graeme Smith.

"It is far from ideal that the Sri Lankan team is about to start a tough Test series and ODI series here in South Africa without having been paid any of their remuneration for the last eight months."

According to reports the Sri Lankan cricketers have not been paid by Sri Lanka Cricket since March 2011 and a total amount of approximately $6-million is owed to the players.

"In this age of professionalism in cricket this kind of thing should not be happening," said Proteas ODI captain, AB De Villiers.

"It's a credit to the players that they've kept playing for their country since March despite all of this.

"We hope it gets sorted out soon."

SACA chief executive Tony Irish said that he found it hard to understand how a nation that had just co-hosted the ICC Cricket World Cup could find itself in such a desperate financial situation. "We know that the players association in Sri Lanka is doing what it can to sort this out for the players and we hope for some positive progress before the first match of the tour starts against SA 'A' in Bloemfontein next Friday," said Irish.