A Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) official has come up with a massive revelation on the recent ban imposed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on star all-rounder Wanindu Hasaranga.
Wanindu Hasaranga has been banned for the upcoming two-match Test series against the Bangladesh National Cricket Team. Just before the Test series, he reversed his retirement from the longest format of the game, having said goodbye to Test cricket last year in August.
Wanindu Hasaranga had moved away from the red-ball cricket to make himself available for the franchise cricket tournaments around the globe. However, just before the Bangladesh series, he was added to the Sri Lanka Test squad and he was expected to miss some IPL matches for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to fulfill his international commitments.
A day after Hasaranga’s retirement reversal, ICC banned him for breaching article 2.8 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to “showing dissent at an Umpire’s decision” during the third ODI against Bangladesh.
Had Wanindu Hasaranga not made his Test comeback, he would have missed four matches in the T20 World Cup 2024 in West Indies and the USA because he had collected eight demerit points in a 24-month period, which resulted in the all-rounder getting four suspension points, which means a ban for two Tests or four ODIs or T20Is, whatever comes first.
As per the FTP of the Sri Lanka National Cricket Team after the Bangladesh Tests, they would have directly faced the South Africa National Cricket Team in the 4th match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 on June 3 in New York.
Wanindu Hasaranga missing the matches in the World Cup would have been a massive setback for the Lankan Lions, hence, it was believed that he planned his comeback to Test cricket to get banned and feature in all World Cup games.
Wanindu Hasaranga had given us a letter well before – SLC official
The Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) team manager Mahinda Halangoda has now broken his silence on the Hasaranga matter. He revealed that the star all-rounder and SLC didn’t plan anything in advance to fool ICC and Hasaranga had given a letter to the board way before in which he had mentioned his decision to reverse his Test retirement.
“Actually the information is incorrect (that he was picked intentionally to avoid match ban in T20 World Cup). Hasaranga had given us a letter well before and the selectors thought about it and decided to pick him for the Test series. It’s got nothing to do with that incident,” team manager Mahinda Halangoda said.
Meanwhile, the Test series between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will begin on Friday, March 22 in Sylhet. The second Test match will be hosted by Chattogram from Saturday, March 30.
Speaking about the Test series, Sri Lanka skipper Dhananjaya De Silva stated that they have experienced players in the team and will aim to win the matches against Bangladesh comprehensively.
“The target is to win the Test series. It’s not about conditions, it’s about the way you play. We also won a Test series in Sri Lanka against Afghanistan and think we will have a good match against Bangladesh too,” said Dhananjaya.
“In any format of cricket, experience is valuable and we have lot of experience in our side, like you mention, in Angelo (Mathews) and Chandimal (Dinesh).”
