Sri Lanka Cricket suspends Gunathilaka amid sex charges

Sri Lankan cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka was refused bail on Monday as he appeared via video link in a court in Sydney on four charges of sexual assault. 

His bail application was hear in a closed session — without journalists present — after Magistrate Robert Williams agreed with a request from the prosecutors to suppress details of the allegations and other elements of the case. 

Gunathilaka appeared wearing handcuffs and spoke only to confirm his identity and that he could hear the proceedings, then the closed session continued.

Gunathilaka's lawyer, Ananda Amaranath, said his client had been refused bail and that "he'll be disappointed, clearly." 

Separately, Sri Lanka Cricket said that it had suspended the left-handed batsman from its national teams and that it would launch its own investigation.

When and why was Gunathilaka arrested?

The 31-year-old was arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning, just hours after his country lost to England in their last T20 World Cup match.

Police said his arrest followed the investigation of alleged sexual assault against a 29-year-old woman. 

Gunathilaka was charged with four counts of sexual intercourse without consent. Police alleged that the two had communicated for a number of days over a dating app before meeting up, with the alleged incident taking place last Wednesday. 

"The pair met up in Sydney at a prearranged meeting. They had drinks and went for something to eat before going back to the young lady's home," said Detective Superintendant Jayne Doherty of the state's Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad. "Police will allege that whilst they were in her home, the male assaulted the female a couple of times whilst performing sexual acts on her." 

What did Sri Lanka Cricket say? 

Sri Lanka's national cricket association announced on Monday that the 31-year-old had been suspended from all national team duty until further notice. 

Sri Lanka Cricket said Gunathilaka was suspended "from all forms of [international] cricket with immediate effect." 

"Furthermore, Sri Lanka Cricket will take the necessary steps to promptly carry out an inquiry into the alleged offense, and, upon conclusion of the aforementioned court case in Australia, steps will be taken to penalize said player if found guilty," the statement said. 

The cricket body said it wanted to emphasize its "zero-tolerance" approach to "any such conduct by a player" and pledged to "provide all the required support to the Australian law enforcement to carry out an impartial inquiry into the incident."

The 31-year-old left-hander has played almost 100 shorter One Day International and T20 matches for Sri Lanka, as well as eight longer Test matches.

He was in Australia for the T20 Cricket World Cup, from which Sri Lanka were eliminated in the group stages. However, he was ruled out with a hamstring injury after arrival and then elected to stay with the squad.

He has faced a series of disciplinary measures in recent years, for issues ranging from skipping training sessions, insulting other players, and breaking the team's curfew rules during a 2018 series of games against South Africa. The curfew-breaking incident also involved allegations of one of Gunathilaka's friends raping a Norwegian woman with him present, although Sri Lankan police later cleared Gunathilaka of wrongdoing. 

msh/dj (AFP, AP, Reuters)