Fighting for Justice
Avishka, Nuwan and Dilhara file action with CAS to clear their names of match-fixing allegations
Faced with suspension over allegation of match-fixing, three former Sri Lanka cricketers have appealed to the Geneva-based Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) against the International Cricket Council (ICC) Anti-Corruption Unit’s (ACU) decision to proceed with the arbitration without giving a fair hearing.
Michael Beloff QC, Chair of the ICC Code of Conduct Commission dismissed trio’s challenge to jurisdiction and declined to lift the provisional suspensions issued on them, forcing them to seek redress in higher forums.
Avishka Gunawardena and Nuwan Zoysa who are attached to Sri Lanka Cricket’s ( SLC) coaching department, and Dilhara Lokuhettige, a former cricketer now resident in Australia, face charges of corruption under the ICC’s Anti- Corruption Code (ACC). They remain suspended for several months.
All three are charged with directly or indirectly soliciting, inducing, enticing, instructing, persuading, encouraging or intentionally facilitating any participant to breach the Code. They are also accused of not reporting corrupt practices to the ACU were deployed by the ICC on the request of the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) which hosted the 2017 edition of the T10 League in UAE.
The ECB organised the T10 League 2017 with approval of the ICC. The world governing body granted ECB sanctioning rights to organize the exclusive event in accordance with the ICC’s event sanctioning regulations in force at that time. The ICC, however, had no role in assigning