Sri-Lankan all-rounder Chamika Karunaratne could face a fresh inquiry, as a letter from Roshan Ranasinghe about the national player’s behavior during the tour at T20 World Cup in Australia leaked publically.
Earlier, Chamika was banned for one-year by Sri Lanka Cricket and fined 5000 US dollars after the SLC conceded an inquiry. But his omission from the Srilankan squad for the Afghanistan series asked an explanation from the sports minister “why Karunaratne was dropped from the series against Afghanistan?”
In the reply, chief selector Pramodya Wickramasinghe wrote a letter explaining why Karunaratne was overlooked by the selectors and also describing all the major indiscipline activities he did in the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia.
“At the conclusion of the Australian WC tour I had a meeting with the National Coach pertaining to tour selections for the Afghanistan inbound tour of Sri Lanka. While names were being discussed, Chamika’s name was discussed in detail, the outcome of the meeting on Chamika’s selection was to leave him out from this tour as the National Coach has lost trust in him as Chamika has been exposed in not being truthful to the coach on multiple occasions. It was the opinion of the Coach that Chamika was not focused on his game,” Wickramasinghe wrote.
“Even during the T20 World Cup in Australia I observed Chamika very closely. It was my observation wherever we travelled internally, he was more focused on meeting ladies of Sri Lankan origin who were domiciled in Australia. Further, I would like to place on record that he has missed some training sessions on tour mentioning that he was feeling unwell. However I have reason to believe that he had accommodated female companions at the hotel, even though he didn’t attend the training sessions,” he further wrote.
“It was revealed that his focus was not on Cricket, which may have been one of the main reasons that he couldn’t perform up to the team management’s expectations. I had a conference call with my fellow selectors mentioning the above incidents, and we decided to drop him from the Afghanistan tour to make sure that he focuses and realigns himself taking his Cricket seriously”, the chief selector further wrote in the letter.
The chief selector of the Sri Lanka cricket board also suggested undergoing psychological counseling before any international cricket. The letter was addressed to Secretary of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) Mohan de Silva. But looking at the player’s behavior, SLC said, “I will not be surprised if a fresh investigation is ordered.”
