Ranatunga, de Silva dismiss fixing allegations
Abeda AshrafEditor
Posted - 2018-08-01T16:44:08+06:00
Updated - 2018-08-01T16:44:16+06:00
’s 1996 World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga and one of the mainstream technician of the victory Aravinda de Silva strongly rejected all the allegations brought against them by former Sri Lanka Cricket Chief Thilanga Sumathipala.
On Tuesday, Ranatunga, accompanied by de Silva told reporters in Colombo, “We have never taken bribed and we have never fixed matches.”
The comments of Ranatunga was followed by de Silva’s query who said, “If I was someone to fix matches, why did Sumathipala have me in his cricket committee?”
The former SLC boss accused the former captain and his mate of taking $15,000 from an Indian bookie to alter match conditions in Lucknow Test in 1994 where the island nation suffered a defeat against
Follow google news channel to get news of BDCricTime. by an innings and 119 runs. Sumathipala also said that two of them were the first ever Sri Lankan cricketers to be charged with match fixing.
“Arjuna and Aravinda are the first Sri Lankans to be accused of match fixing. They were accused of taking 15,000 dollars. We had a written report. The entire cricketing community is blaming me for not taking action against them at the time,” Sumathipala publicly accused the country’s legend in later part of the previous week.
"Not $15,000, but we could have made $15 million if we threw the World Cup," Ranatunga said. “If anyone has thrown matches, they should be kicked out of the country,” he added.
It can be noted that Sumathipala and Ranatunga are political rivals in Sri Lanka.