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On September 25, Monday, the former Sri Lankan off-spinner Sachithra Senanayake was granted bail by the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s court, after he was arrested by the police over match-fixing charges earlier this month. The 38-year-old was compelled to pay two personal sureties of LKR five million each, to get his bail application accepted in court, after they established no evidence against him for influencing the investigation.
The court-imposed travel ban on Sachithra Senanayake is still in effect, regardless of him getting released on bail. It has been further revealed that the Colombo-born cricketer is set to appear in court once again, on December 12, 2023.
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It has been alleged that Sachithra Senanayake attempted to convince players in the 2020 edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) to fix matches, as per the report from ESPNcricinfo. That year, the former Sri Lanka cricketer wasn’t taking part in the tournament as a player, instead, he was reported to be overseas.
His arrest on September 6 happened under the “Prevention of Offences relating to Sports Act’ in Sri Lanka, which states that, “any person who solicits, entices, persuades, or instructs any person… to influence the result, progress, conduct … of any sport, commits the offence of corruption in sports.”
Sachithra Senanayake has played cricket for Sri Lanka in all formats, picking up 78 wickets in 74 matches. He went wicketless in the only Test match of his international career. He picked up 53 wickets in 49 ODIs and 24 wickets in 24 T20Is.
