One of the country’s most appallingly indisciplined public figures Dhanushka Gunathilaka can look at himself as a man who was legally freed after a woman in Australia claimed in court she was raped by him at the same time he was carrying the Sri Lanka Lion flag as an ambassador at the T20 cricket World Cup last November.
Taking Gunathilaka’s infamous history into account, he is no stronger to violating the Players’ Code of Conduct and the terms and conditions of his contract with his employer and his off-field frolics will continue to be questioned by Society.
The more rich and famous people win their legal battles, the more will Society be groping for answers.
To some running the affairs of cricket in the country Gunatilleke is a hero who brought them some much yearned relief when common followers have gone against them in a way none of their predecessors have ever faced in public and never before has a Sri Lankan cricketer been associated with a condom as argued at his court hearing.
Gunathilaka is the creation of a rotten and corrupt system that cannot correct itself. A system or no system that does not care too hoots about public opinion or a media that they take pleasure in taking to court.
After past cricket administrators like the late Gamini Dissanayake who singlehandedly convinced the lords in London that his country deserved to rub shoulders with the world’s elite on the field and off it, today’s so-called keepers of the sport live to serve themselves.
Dissanayake at a second coming in1994 as cricket chief elected unanimously told the Press in his scholarly wisdom: “Let’s meet once a month and discuss how to take cricket forward”.
The irony is that today’s administrators see journalism as a crime.
It will be interesting to find out whether Sri Lanka is the only cricket playing country that takes the public watchdog to court and whether the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Charter sanctions cricket correspondents to be taken to court for being part of the country’s vital component with no financial gain.
One of the many cases where Sri Lanka Cricket, basking in the might of its clout, paid scant respect to public intelligence was in 2022 when a two-year ban on Gunathilaka and two other players for violating rules on a tour of England was lifted after seven months.
The extent to which present day Sri Lankan cricketers have brought shame on themselves and the country they represent could not have been explained any better when on yet another occasion Sri Lanka Cricket put out a Media release saying that a ghost cricketer, they did not name, was directed to seek psychiatric treatment.
Far too many skeletons can be found in the cupboards at Sri Lanka Cricket for anyone to expect a turnaround and the more time goes by the more skeptics are born.
