Sports

Green tops await Sri Lankans in South Africa

Published

4 months ago

2020/12/20

by Rex Clementine

The national cricket team landed in South Africa Friday night and soon will resume training lead up to the two match Test series against the Proteas. Compared to most places in the world, South Africa’s health guidelines are lot more flexible and all what a person needs is two negative PCR reports before being allowed to assume daily activities. For a cricketer, a day’s activities in these times of pandemic means practice, weight training and rest. They will be restricted to their hotel and the cricket ground and South Africa’s fantastic tourist destinations will be out of bounds.

Well, safari parks aren’t the only attractions in Johannesburg. There’s the Apartheid Museum, Gold Reef City, Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens and lots more. The team will be in a bio-bubble during their three week stay and their contact with the outside world will be limited.

Following their stunning series win in South Africa during the last tour, Dimuth Karunaratne’s side can expect green tops this time around. The last series was played in Durban and Port Elizabeth with both coastal towns proving to be to Sri Lankans liking. The wickets at both venues are not the quickest in the country.

This time, however, it’s been a complete contrast. The tourists have been given two of the quickest tracks in the country – Wanderers and Centurion. The technical adjustments the players have to make are too many when they go from the sub-continent and it doesn’t help that the tour doesn’t include any warm-up games.

When Sri Lanka won in 2018 they didn’t have any warm-up games as well but on that occasion, they had flown directly from Canberra, Australia having been involved in a Test series. So the technical adjustments aren’t much. This time, however, they are going into Tests after playing a T-20 competition.

The health measures that South Africa have been put in place will be under the spotlight as well. Although cricket centers like England, UAE, Australia and even Sri Lanka conducted events successfully having created bubbles, England’s tour to South Africa was abandoned midway through after positive cases emerged within the bubble.

Last week a First Class game in South Africa was called off after a player tested positive for COVID-19.

Sri Lanka sent their Head Coach Mickey Arthur and a doctor three days ahead to South Africa to monitor the situation.

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Sports

Murali hospitalised for cardiac treatment

Published

19 hours ago

2021/04/20

Sahan Weerasooriya

Muralitharan was at the Chepauk when Sunrisers played Mumbai Indians on Saturday, incidentally his 49 birthday. © BCCI/IPL

Sri Lankan cricket legend Muttiah Muralitharan, who is part of the Sunrisers Hyderabad support staff in the ongoing IPL, has undergone an angioplasty in Madras.

It was reported that the champion off-spinner “had a stent fitted to unblock an artery, and will rejoin Sunrisers Hyderabad when discharged.

He has been the bowling coach and mentor of Sunrisers Hyderabad since 2015. His team has suffered three losses in a row this season.

Sports

Dilhara Lokuhettige gets eight-year ban for corruption

Published

19 hours ago

2021/04/20

Sahan Weerasooriya

Dilhara Lokuhettige had been slapped with corruption charges in April 2019

“The severity of the sanction reflects the seriousness of his offences and his continued refusal to cooperate”

Dilhara Lokuhettige, the former Sri Lanka allrounder, has been banned from all cricket for eight years by the ICC anti-corruption tribunal after being found guilty of breaching the ICC’s anti-corruption code on three counts.

Lokuhettige had been slapped with corruption charges in April 2019, five months after the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) had also charged him. The charges relate to the 2017 T10 tournament played in the UAE, which is why the ECB had been first to lay charges.

In January this year, the tribunal found Lokuhettige guilty of:

Article 2.1.1 – for being party to an agreement or effort to fix or contrive or otherwise influence improperly the result, progress, conduct or other aspect(s) of a match.

Article 2.1.4 – directly or indirectly soliciting, inducing, enticing, instructing, persuading, encouraging or intentionally facilitating any participant to breach code article 2.1.

Article 2.4.4 – failing to disclose to the ACU full details of any approaches or invitations received to engage in corrupt conduct under the code.

“Having represented Sri Lanka in international cricket, Dilhara had attended a number of anti-corruption education sessions and would have known his actions were a breach of the Code,” Alex Marshall, the ICC general manager – anti corruption, said. “The severity of the sanction reflects the seriousness of his offences and his continued refusal to cooperate and should serve as a deterrent for anyone considering getting involved in corruption of any kind.”

An Al Jazeera documentary on cricket corruption in Sri Lanka had initially raised concerns about Lokuhettige. In that, Lokuhettige was seen to be in the room when another former Sri Lanka cricketer was talking to an alleged corruptor, as well as an Al Jazeera journalist posing as a prospective bettor.

Former Sri Lanka seamer Nuwan Zoysa was also found guilty of three corruption-related offences to do with that T10 tournament in November last year. Zoysa has since denied any wrongdoing.

Zoysa and Lokuhettige are the third and fourth former Sri Lanka players to be charged with corruption. Sanath Jayasuriya was the most high-profile cricketer to cop charges, and has served out a two-year suspension from the game, while former offspinner and sometime Galle curator Jayananda Warnaweera was the first to be charged with corruption by the ICC.

As Lokuhettige has been living in Australia and held no positions with Sri Lankan cricket, he has not faced a sanctions from the SLC so far.

He played 11 white-ball internationals for Sri Lanka, picking up eight wickets to go with 101 runs with the bat. His last competitive game was a first-class fixture for Moors Sports Club in February 2016.

(ESPN Cricinfo)

Sports

Royal, Trinity march into semis as Ahan continues top form

Published

19 hours ago

2021/04/20

Sahan Weerasooriya

Under-19 Cricket

Royal College marched into the semi-finals of the Under-19 Division I Tier ‘A’ tournament with a convincing six wickets victory over Nalanda as they stopped the team inclusive of at least two leading players of the tournament at the quarter-final hurdle on Monday.

Chasing 190 runs to win, the tournament’s leading batsman Ahan Wickramasinghe scored an unbeaten 71 runs for Royal to seal the semi-final place with 11 overs to spare. Dasis Manchanayake who took three Nalanda wickets also chipped in with 22 runs.

Wickramasinghe has scored over 400 runs now in six matches. Raveen de Silva who scored an unbeaten half century and Vinuja Ranpul who chipped in with 22 runs for Nalanda are the tournament’s second and third highest run scorers. .

In the other Tier ‘A’ quarter-final played on Monday, Trinity beat St. Sebastian’s, Moratuwa by seven wickets to book their semi-final place.

While Royal meet the winners of the match between St. Anthony’s, Katugastota and Mahanama, Colombo in the semi-final, Trinity will encounter the winners of the quarter-final between Richmond and St. Joseph’s.

In the Division II Tier ‘A’ tournament, Lyceum International School, Wattala continued their impressive run as they edged out Rahula College, Matara in the quarter-final.

Results

Division I Tier A

Royal beat Nalanda at Mount Lavinia

Nalanda

189 for 7 in 50 overs (Rashan Dissanayake 30, Nadil Jayakody 32, Vinuja Ranpul 22, Raveen de Silva 59n.o.; Dasis Manchanayake 3/17)

Royal

191 for 4 in 39 overs (Sineh Jayawardena 60, Isiwara Dissanayake 21, Ahan Wickramasinghe 71n.o., Dasis Manchanayake 22; Dineth Samaraweera 2/32)

Trinity beat St. Sebastian’s at Reid Avenue

St. Sebastian’s

131 all out in 43.2 overs (Yashan Avishka 51, Savindu Rodrigo 30; Dinuka Thennakoon 4/23, Abishek Anandakumar 3/37)

Trinity

133 for 3 in 30.1 overs (Thevin Amarasinghe 39, Umair Raizan 60, Pawan Pathiraja 21n.o.; Sadeesh Fernando 3/39)