After a match-fixing investigation was opened against former Sri Lankan cricketer Sachithra Senanayake, the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Colombo issued a travel ban.
Senanayake (38), who represented the island nation in one Test, 49 ODIs, and 24 T20 Internationals between 2012 and 2016, has been charged with attempting to manipulate games in the 2020 Lanka Premier League (LPL).
After the Attorney General (AG) instructed the Sports Ministry’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU) to file criminal proceedings against the former off-spinner, the court ordered Senanayake to stay in the country for three months.
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The Prevention of Offences Related to Sports Act No. 24 of 2019 has been judged to have sufficient materials, according to the AG. Following numerous rounds of conversations between the Sri Lankan cricket authorities, the state solicitors acting on behalf of the Attorney General, and Alex Marshall, General Manager of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU), criminal charges were finally directed to be filed.
Senanayake is accused of phoning two cricket players from Dubai to fix matches in the first season of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) in 2020.
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Senanayake’s case will be the first since Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Offences Related to Sports Act, which was passed in 2019, makes corruption in sports a serious criminal violation.
Sri Lanka is the first nation in South Asia to enact legislation against corruption and offences related to sports.
The 38-year-old former cricketer, who has played for Sri Lanka in 73 white-ball matches and taken 78 international wickets, however, has denied all of the accusations, calling them baseless accusations intended to defame him and his family.
The cricketer has also expressed a desire to file a lawsuit.
The cricketer attempted to obtain protection from arrest by filing an anticipatory bail application with the Colombo Magistrate in 2021, but it was denied.
-IANS
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