Sri Lankan opener Dhanushka Gunathilaka handed a 6-match ban for violation of player conduct regulations

What's the story

The Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) has made a public announcement on Friday, June 27, stating that opening batsman Danushka Gunathilaka has been handed a six-match suspension with immediate effect. The punishment comes due to Gunathilaka's action of breaching the "Player Code of Conduct and Contractual Obligation", as per the cricket board. His ban for six international games is a sum total of punishments from two different violations - three games for the latest misdemeanor and three from his previous suspension sentence of one year, which he had already been serving, since 18th October 2017.

In case you didn't know...

The Sri Lankan top-order batsman was earlier announced to have been suspended from all forms of international cricket for one year by the SLC, with a pending inquiry. The reasons were not revealed at the time.

A report by the AFP however, had revealed that Gunathilaka's punishment was related to an alleged sexual assault that occurred in the team hotel in the early hours on July 22, Sunday, while the team was playing South Africa in a Test-match series.

The latest incident from Gunathilaka is the third such from the player as far as conduct-related misdemeanors are concerned, and that too within a space of just nine months.

In October 2017, he was handed a six-match ban from limited-overs international cricket for reportedly skipping a training session while the team was on tour of India. This was followed by accusations of late-night partying as well, during the Bangladesh-Sri Lanka-Zimbabwe tri-series at Mirpur, causing the SLC to ban him from three games and also adding one demerit point to his disciplinary record for the same. He was also reprimanded for breaching Level 1 of the ICC Code of Conduct, on the eve of the tri-series final.

The details

The 27-year-old will also be barred from receiving payment for the second Test against South Africa, during the course of which he was discovered to be in breach of the contract. No bonus or payments in relation to the game will be awarded to him, as per the decision taken by the SLC.

The board also held AFP's reports true, saying that the alleged incident reportedly involved Gunathilaka's acquaintance - a British passport-holder of Sri Lankan origin - who was accused of sexual assault by a Norwegian woman. Sandeep Jude Selliah, the above-mentioned acquaintance, was arrested by the police following the complaint, the next day, June 23, itself. Gunathilaka was also questioned by the police later, and apparently, he said that he was asleep and was unaware of the incident. The reported stated that he wasn't aware of the incident as he was asleep.

"He has said he was asleep and was not aware of what had taken place between his friend and the Norwegian woman," a policeman told AFP on condition of anonymity.

But in a separate inquiry conducted by the SLC, it was discovered that Gunathilaka had allegedly breached the team curfew on his own at the time of the incident. This latest decision to ban him from six international games, and all the add-ons in punishment stems from SLC's latest discovery.

What's next

Gunathilaka was in good nick in the second Test match against South Africa at Colombo, having scored half-centuries in both innings of the game, even saving the home side from a possible breakdown with Keshav Maharaj of South Africa turning the ball very well on the dry Colombo surface.

However, with the newly-imposed ban on him, he has not been named in the squad for the upcoming ODI series. He will hence be joining former captain Dinesh Chandimal on the sidelines. The latter is also serving a ban for two Tests and four ODIs following the ball-tampering scandal in West Indies, in late June. Sri Lanka will have to face the Protean side, in the absence of two of their finest batsmen..