By Revatha S. Silva
One of the most talked-about and prospective national cricketers, who played in the Galle Test against England that ended on Monday (18), has been involved in an ugly sex scandal, sources in Galle confirmed to The Morning Sports yesterday (19).
The youngster, in his early twenties, has been caught with a female official of the same Sri Lanka tour contingent in Galle – presently confined to a bio-secure bubble owing to Covid-19 health restrictions – in his hotel room, reportedly during the above match.
“The incident has been apparently reported to the Colombo headquarters of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) by the team management in Galle. The player’s misconduct is not a new thing. Similar types of sexual misconduct have been going on for a long time. The same female official has been involved on many occasions on such incidents. But the authorities have kept a blind eye,” our source added.
“Such sexual misbehaviour had been happening during Sri Lanka’s recent visit to South Africa too. This is only a part of our players’ bad conduct during important series. Some of them are into smoking and boozing during important matches, and this is something in addition to those,” he explained.
The allegation could not have come at a worse time. Sri Lanka has continuously shown poor performance and lost most of their matches in recent history, only to trigger massive criticism from all quarters. Their loss in Galle, this time against England by seven wickets, was mainly due to poor application and temperament, required in international Test cricket.
As Sri Lanka was bowled out for 135 runs in Galle in their first innings, four of their squad members were seen playing cards inside a player enclosure. The video footage of them playing cards while the team was struggling in the middle of the ground received scathing criticism in social media last week.
This situation will further paint a very poor picture of the local cricket administration altogether. Sri Lanka’s Head Coach is Mickey Arthur and their Manager cum Head of National Selectors is Ashantha de Mel. Both of them are with the team – evidently while all these unruly incidents took place, and inside the same hotel.
Sri Lanka cricket is being destroyed in recent times on many fronts. Much talked-about cricket board corruption, political interference (under previous governments, we can say as of now), match-fixing allegations, player-manager mafias, lack of commitment due to high incomes and perks, poor physical training, players bribing team physios for getting through their fitness tests, lack of unity and factionalism within the team, and now another evil has emerged in the form of breaching the team’s discipline at its highest sense – sexual misconduct.
We wonder whether people will follow Sri Lanka’s cricket in future, if the players are to behave in this irresponsible manner.
Hey, where is our young and knowledgeable Sports Minister Mr. Namal Rajapaksa? Doesn’t all this fall under his purview, or someone else’s? We are puzzled, Mr. Minister.
The Morning.lk
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