Rex Clementine
in Sydney

Sri Lanka cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka was denied bail yesterday in Sydney after being charged with four counts of sexual assault. The alleged incident took place in Sydney a day after Sri Lanka’s penultimate Super 12 game against Afghanistan in Brisbane. The arrest was made a couple of hours after Sri Lanka’s last game against England as the team returned to the hotel to pack their bags. The team was scheduled to leave the hotel at 3:30 am on Sunday. The arrest was made around 1am.

With bail denied, Danushka will remain in a correction center and his lawyers intend to appeal to the Supreme Court for bail. He was denied bail on the basis of being a foreign national and police argued that they can not guarantee the player being at the said Sydney address given to the court.

Although Sri Lanka Cricket had initially taken a firm decision to distance themselves from the embarrassing incident, the board was allegedly told by a VVIP politician from SLPP to bear the players’ legal costs. Another prominent politician, formerly with SJB, is believed to have helped out with the Sydney address to appeal for bail. However, a source close to the player said that a famous cricket fan had intervened to get a Sydney address of a Sri Lankan living in Australia.

The board yesterday suspended Gunathilaka. This is the fourth time he had been suspended by SLC. His most recent suspension was last year when he breached the bio bubble in the UK. He was sent home from the tour along with two other players. Although he was handed a suspension of one year, it was later reduced to six months. He was advised to seek counseling.

On previous occasions that he had been suspended, there have been interventions from higher-ups to go soft on the player.

Sources in Australia told The Island that if proven guilty, Gunathilaka faces a lengthy jail sentence, a minimum of six years.

Gunathilaka featured in Sri Lanka’s opening fixture of the World Cup against Namibia in Geelong, but was withdrawn from the squad after he sustained a hamstring injury.

The team management decided not to send the player back home as his injury was not serious. They were hoping to draft him into the squad if there was any injury to another batter. Sri Lanka were knocked out of the World Cup with just two wins in the Super 12 stage against Ireland and Afghanistan. The team suffered defeats against New Zealand, Australia and England in the second round.

Officials, team management, and the national selection panel have been blamed for not putting their foot down on previous instances when Gunathilaka had got into trouble.

The team management comprises of gentlemen who are well respected in cricket circles and no doubt they have the best interests of Sri Lankan cricket. But there are question marks on whether they have the firmness to deal with troublemakers like Gunathilaka.  It needs a Duleep Mendis or an Asanka Gurusinha to take the bull by the horns.

The current selection panel has been a disappointment. Their much-publicized fitness regime was welcomed by all and sundry when it was introduced last year. But it appears now that it was an unkind move to sideline half a dozen seniors.

The Island

learns that players were exempted from fitness tests before they came over for the World Cup. Although they have failed to provide answers to why so many injuries happened, the answer could be in the fact that fitness was compromised in the last two months. The selectors perhaps thought that everything was tickety-boo after the team won the Asia Cup. They were proven wrong.

The selectors have been way too lenient in dealing with misbehaving  players. The current panel in fact appointed someone who was on bail after a road accident as the vice-captain of the national team. Given their lack of firmness against players who misbehaved, just in case Gunathilaka were to get out of trouble in Australia and returned home, there is a high probability of him being appointed as the next T-20 captain of Sri Lanka. Such is the reputation of the national selection panel; no integrity and no accountability.  What’s going on is simply not cricket.