Unprofessional, immature and selfish - Bio-bubble breachers suspended

By Shehan Daniel

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) yesterday suspended Kusal Mendis, Niroshan Dickwella and Danushka Gunathilaka pending inquiry, recalling them from England after they breached the team’s bio-secure bubble with a late night jaunt in Durham on Sunday.

Videos posted on social media showed the three cricketers in a public area on Sunday night near what is appears to be the Durham City Centre, presenting irrefutable evidence to SLC that they had ventured outside the designated area of the bio-secure bubble.

The players were asked to self-isolate in their hotel rooms when news of the incident came to light last morning. SLC conducted a preliminary inquiry over the videos, and based on the report by the team manager, the three players were suspended from all forms of cricket and asked to return home.

The inquiry will be conducted by SLC’S disciplinary committee and with the Ex-co taking a stern view on the breach, it is likely the players will face a minimum of a one-year ban.

They offenders are understood to have admitted leaving the hotel, though also offering their own excuses as to why they did, in what can only be described as unprofessional, immature and selfish behaviour.

While players were allowed to leave the hotel for fitness training, that too within a demarcated area, the City Centre was strictly out of bounds.

They would have understood the risks of their actions having signed their Tour Declaration letters before leaving for England, a document which an SLC official confirmed included details of restrictions within the bio-secure bubble – restrictions they would have also been familiar with having been in other similar bubbles both at home and overseas.

They not only opened the door for a serious breach and a Covid-19 outbreak among their team-mates, but have now left Sri Lanka short-handed for the ODI series that starts today with there being no option for the visiting team to call up replacements. That they are three key batsmen and missing the series is unlikely to make Sri Lanka’s task of beating the reigning world champions any easier.

If these three players had shown the same amount of solidarity with their rule-following team mates in Durham, as they did at the Taj Samudra when they stood united and refused to sign the annual and tour contracts presented to them by SLC before this series, maybe they would have thought twice before acting so callously and selfishly.

Dickwella in particular would have been Sri Lanka’s highest paid cricketer had he signed the annual contract offered to the national players. arguably the one who should have been the one to inherit the captaincy when the selectors decided they wanted to experiment with a younger team for the recent limited over series and axed several senior figures. But now, though he is yet to convince as captain, Kusal Janith Perera looks a better role model to the younger players than the ‘born leader’ Dickwella.

Mendis was dragged out of the wilderness and named as vice captain of the limited over team, probably in hopes that the prodigious talent’s focus will return to his cricket after a serious offthe-field incident, but that responsibility seems to have been too much or, more precisely, not important enough for him.

Gunathilaka remains an enigma, an exponentially gifted batsmen, to whom social media and popularity is more of an allure than reaching his true cricketing potential.the ratio between his off-thefield indiscretions and international centuries will probably not work in his favour when SLC conducts its inquiry into the breach.

The selectors had taken a gamble in positioning these three among the seniors and leaders in the team, those expected to show the squad’s younger members what it means to represent Sri Lanka, but that fact too appears to have been lost on them, or they believe that that puts them above the guidelines and rules.

SLC has not always meted out deserved punishment for off-the-field incidents – a history that perhaps may have encouraged the repeat offender among the three players – but this could be well be rare instance where a decision, however harsh, finds unanimous public approval.