SLC to conduct inquiry after Shanaka leaves first-class match midway to play ILT20

The board’s chargesheet to Shanaka includes the allegation that first-class match referee Wendell Labrooy had been led to believe Shanaka had a concussion, in order to approve a substitute. This is according to SLC CEO Ashley de Silva, who told ESPNcricinfo “SSC [Shanaka’s first-class club] would probably be conducting their own inquiry as well”.

Shanaka, however, told ESPNcricinfo that de Silva and others had been aware that he would have to leave the first-class match early. According to Shanaka, he had left the ground soon after being dismissed on the third morning of the the three-day match. He said he visited a doctor at a nearby hospital first, to inspect a blow to the neck he had sustained while playing a sweep shot that morning, and then headed off to Dubai to play that evening’s T20, after a separate physiotherapist had cleared him to play.

“SLC and the club knew I had to leave,” Shanaka said. “I only came back because there was a request from the SSC to play this first-class match. But my other team wanted me back, as I’d helped win two games for them earlier in the tournament.”

For SLC, however, exiting a league game early, particularly with suspect reasons, is problematic, not that it has yet been established if there actually was any pretense involved. The board CEO de Silva explained that while Lasith Malinga had also famously played a Mumbai Indians match and then broken records in a domestic match in Pallekele match the next day, Malinga had played until both those matches reached their conclusion.

Day three is when the absconding is alleged to have occurred, but before he left, Shanaka crashed a further 84, hitting 123 off 87 balls in total, 88 of those runs coming in boundaries. Though SSC’s innings ended not long after he got out, Shanaka did not bowl an over in the next Moors innings (the third of the match), and played no further part in the game.

What is clear is that several hours later, he appeared for the Capitals in Dubai, and struck 34 off 12 at No. 5, helping his team to 217 against Abu Dhabi Knight Riders. He didn’t bowl in the Knight Riders’ innings either, however.