After being found guilty of having made a serious breach of the Code of Conduct, former Sri Lankan male cricketer Dulip Samaraweera is banned for holding any position in Australian cricket for 20 years. Samaraweera, who appeared in seven Tests and five ODIs for Sri Lanka between 1993 and 1995, was being investigated due to allegations regarding his alleged past dealings with a female player. He made his entry into Cricket Victoria as a specialist batting coach in 2008 before he became an acting head coach for women’s side last November.
The Conduct Commission has found that Samaraweera has engaged in an inappropriate behaviour that is contrary to section 2.23 of the CA’s Code of Conduct. The inappropriate conduct allegations took place when Samaraweera was working at Cricket Victoria (CV).
The CA Integrity Department receives complaints based on Integrity Codes and Policies; these apply to state and territory associations.As such, the Conduct Commission hears all matters referred to it by CA Integrity.
“Both the CA and CV are more than committed to ensuring a safe environment for every player and employee while taking care of their welfare first and foremost. The reporting of inappropriate behaviours is strongly encouraged as this can either be done via CA Integrity Unit or through Cor integrity,Hotline,” said Cricket Australia (CA) in a statement on Thursday.
Section 2.23 of the code refers to conduct that is either: (a) contrary to the Spirit of Cricket; (b) is unbecoming of a representative or official; (c) is or could be harmful to the interests of cricket; or (d) does or could bring the game of cricket into disrepute
In May this year, in the appointment of Coach for Australian women A teams, two years’ contracts were given to Samaraweera who had served earlier as the official coach of Sri Lankans until his no-more-nonsense approach was seen as a way of destroying a coach’s career. He held this position for only fourteen days when they replaced him with Andrew Christie who had been serving under Melbourne Renegades WBBL.
Samaraweera aged fifty-two was meant to enter into an agreement with Australia A women’s team for their multi format series against India A sometime in August this year before being stood down owing to some serious allegations raised against him regarding misconduct.
