Double blow for Sri Lanka cricket’s reputation

 Bhanuka Rajapaksa

• Cricket official Sanath Jayasundara banned for attempt to bribe former Sports Minister Harin Fernando
• Bhanuka Rajapaksa handed one-year suspension and fine but returns to training squad

Sri Lanka’s cricket reputation suffered a double blow on Monday when an official was banned for seven years for trying to bribe the country’s Sports Minister, while a top player was fined for giving interviews criticising the national board.

The International Cricket Council said it had banned former Sri Lanka Cricket Performance Analyst Sanath Jayasundara for offering money to former Sports Minister Harin Fernando to influence an international match.

Jayasundara is the latest in a series of players and officials to be banned for corruption.

“Jayasundara’s attempt to bribe a minister is a grave transgression while the efforts to cover up his tracks and the lack of remorse are hugely disappointing,” ICC Anti-Corruption Chief Alex Marshall said in a statement.

“We won’t tolerate corrupt conduct in our sport and my team will be relentless in preventing such behaviour,” he warned.

Jayasundara was found guilty of charges of offering a bribe to “improperly” influence the unnamed international game and of delaying the investigation into the incident. The bribe is reported to have been offered in 2018 when Fernando said that the ICC considered Sri Lanka to be the “worst country for cricket corruption”.

The ban on Jayasundera is backdated to 11 May 2019, when he was provisionally suspended.

Following a full hearing and presentation of written and oral argument, the Tribunal found Jayasundara guilty of:

Article 2.1.3 – offering a bribe or other reward to the Sri Lankan Sports Minister to contrive in any way or otherwise influence improperly the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of an International Match.

Article 2.4.7 – obstructing or delaying an ACU investigation into possible corrupt conduct under the ICC Anti-Corruption Code

Jayasundara has 14 days to respond to the charges. The ICC will not make any further comment in respect of these charges at this stage.

Earlier, Bhanuka Rajapaksa was fined $ 5,000 and handed a suspension ban for giving interviews criticising the national board. Sri Lanka Cricket said the 29-year-old Rajapaksa was in breach of his contract by giving the interviews to local media and on social media platforms.

His one ban was suspended for two years; however, the board said Rajapaksa has been included in a 13-member training squad under a bio-bubble focusing on future tours for a series against India starting next week.

Sri Lanka Cricket said the decision was taken after Rajapaksa had achieved the required fitness levels, which is one of the prerequisites for national selection. He is expected to join the bio-bubble from today. 

Rajapaksa gave interviews last month saying that he was unfairly excluded from the just-concluded tour of England where Sri Lanka lost the one-day and T20 series.

He played his first T20 against Pakistan in October 2019 and the last in January 2020 against India.