Danushka Gunathilaka made headlines for the wrong reasons but the irony is that the people with more skeletons in their cupboards will sit in final Judgement of him:
For almost a year Dhanushka Gunathilaka was at the mercy of a courthouse in Australia that tried him over an accusation of raping a woman and he made no revelation that he lived in fear of languishing in a jail and his cricket career perished behind bars.
Now back in the safety of his native Sri Lanka with the race won and the enemy destroyed, Gunathilaka could not hide the fact that he will for more reasons than one fit the bill that there is no saint without a past and no sinner without a future.
“I want to start practicing (cricket) and I don’t know what the conditions on me will be. I have to wait and see,” Gunathilaka told a small band of journalists at the airport on his arrival accompanied by a blonde female he hinted was his partner and guide.
His remarks were in response to Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe declaring that the veteran of 100 international appearances will have to face conditions to get back into the Sri Lanka team.
Although Gunathilaka did not show any outward signs of remorse, it was clear he wanted to convey a message that he intends to put back a dark and dreary past with a new world to look forward to.
When asked if the unnamed woman was his flame, Gunathilaka politely asked a reporter what he thought. “I think it is your love”, the mediaman replied. “Yes you can think it that way and so be it,” said Gunathilaka in the softest of tones the first signs of a man willing to atone for his sins showing no public animosity.
While most followers of cricket frowned on Gunathilaka over his off field exploits that landed him in trouble more than once, the south paw batsman will also have his share of sympathizers who feel he paid the price for his unsavoury behaviour during the T20 World Cup in Australia last October.
“People have a right to form their opinion about me and that is their right. I have to respect that,” said Gunathilaka who was not interested in political correctness.
But he also made no mention that he let down his team-mates by sneaking out under cover of darkness to indulge in a night rendezvous with a strange woman reportedly picked up through a dating website that backfired on him, first questioned and detained by police and then put under surveillance before a raunchy court ordeal.
For now Gunathilaka at 32 can contemplate his future with a girl by his side who accompanied him to and from the steps of a Sydney courthouse to the comforts of his home where he will learn of his final judgement before he can play again.
But the people who will sit to pass judgement on him are the ones with more skeletons in their cupboards who have no right whatsoever to cast the first or last stone.
