Former Sri Lankan all-rounder Kaushal Lokuarachchi’s 18-month ban from cricket has been reduced to six months allowing the former SSC cricketer to play domestic and international cricket.
However, talking to Ceylon Today, the 32-year-old said he was in fact surprised when he was handed the ban.
“I was stunned actually when I was banned for 18 months because I hadn’t done anything wrong and in the end they have decided to reduce my ban which allows me to take part in domestic cricket tournaments,” Lokuarachchi who last played for Sri Lanka in 2012 said.
The all-rounder who currently lives in Australia says that he doesn’t wish to play cricket for Sri Lanka or for any other club.
“Well at present I am in Australia and I have no intentions of playing for Sri Lanka or any club in the country, but, if there’s a tournament like SLPL, I’d like to come and play,” he said.
Meanwhile, former Bangladesh cricket captain Mohammad Ashraful received a lifeline Monday after a special appeal panel reduced his lengthy ban by three years allowing him to return to competitive cricket as early as August 2016.
The 30-year-old cricketer was originally slapped with an eight-year ban from all forms of cricket in June this year after he was found guilty of match fixing by a tribunal set up by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).
But a disciplinary appeal panel “set aside” the sanction and reduced the ban to five years including two-year suspended sentence provided the star batsman participates in the “anti-corruption education and training programme to be organized by the BCB and the ICC (International Cricket Council).”
Ashraful would now “be entitled to return to cricket on or about 13 August 2016 upon production of a certificate of good conduct from ICC,” the panel said in its verdict.
There was no comment from the batsman, arguably the country’s most famous sportsman before he fell from grace last year after admitting match-fixing during the 2013 edition of the local twenty-20 cricket meet called Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).
In a joint statement, the ICC and BCB said they would be “carefully reviewing” the verdict and would “decide on their next steps, including whether or not to appeal”.
The authorities, however, hailed the panel’s ruling to impose ten-year ban on Salim Chowdhury, the owner of the reigning BPL champions, Dhaka Gladiators, who had been reprieved by the tribunal. The 10-year ban imposed on Chowdhury’s son and co-owner of the Gladiators Shihab Jishan Chowdhury was upheld.
