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Lasith Malinga Banned For Breach Of Contract

Lasith Malinga Banned For Breach Of Contract

Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga was suspended by the Sri Lankan Cricket Board for one year after he was pleaded guilty to a breach of contarct. He accepted the charges against him when he was appeared before Sri Lankan cricket’s special inquiry panelon Tuesday and tendered a formal apology, but the board imposed a one-year suspentionon him. The Sri Lankan Cricket said in its Press Release that “one-year suspension, suspended by six months (whereby the punishment would be imposed in the event of a similar infraction within the stipulated 6 month period) and a 50% fine of his next ODI match fee.”

Mailinga will also be charged 50% of the match fees of the next one-day international he will play. While this decision will have no impect on the fast bowler’s availability for the Zimbabwe series starting from June 30. Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe will play 5 ODIs & 1 test match in the series.

The inquiry was initiated by Malinga’s response to the sports minister Dayashri Jayashekara, who had alleged that Sri Lanka’s poor fielding standards were due to players’ inadequate fitness, in particular their “big bellies”. The statement did not go well with 33 year old fast bowler and than he publicly rediculed the minister’s knowledge of cricket in an interview implying that he was no more that armchair critics, and had not played cricket at a sufficiently high level for his criticism to be taken seriously. He further added that nobody had raised fitness issues when Sri Lanka defeated India during a league game. According to Sri Lankan Cricket, Ssince his return from Champions Trophy in England he had twice acted in “contravention of the terms of agreement.”

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Shubham Jain