Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Sri Lanka minister offers ICC evidence 2011 World Cup was fixed

Sri Lanka's former sports minister said on Saturday he has offered more evidence to cricket's world governing body that he says shows the 2011 World Cup was fixed.

Mahindananda Aluthgamage's remarks come a day after local police dropped an investigation into the claims, citing a lack of evidence that Sri Lanka deliberately lost the final to hosts India.


Police had grilled former chief selector Aravinda de Silva, opening batsman Upul Tharanga and the 2011 captain Kumar Sangakkara -- the latter for nearly 10 hours.

But Aluthgamage, who was sports minister at the time and is now state minister for energy, said there were "powerful people who are spending huge sums of money to hush up the investigation".

He said that he has informed Alex Marshall, anti-corruption chief at the International Cricket Council (ICC), that he was ready to provide more evidence showing the match was thrown.

Aluthgamage said police had failed to probe the claims properly and urged Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to intervene and pressure the ICC to reopen an investigation.

Marshall had said in a statement on Friday that "at this time" the ICC has "not been presented with any evidence that supports the claims made or which would merit launching an investigation".

But he said that the ICC takes "allegations of this nature extremely seriously and should we receive any evidence to corroborate the claims, we will review our current position."

Sri Lankan police have not publicly responded to Aluthgamage's claims.

The questioning of the nation's cricketing heroes triggered criticism against the government on social media ahead of elections on August 5 when Rajapaksa's party is hoping to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament.

More For You

New MI6 chief warns of acute Russian threat, urges tech-driven intelligence

Technology will be a special area of focus for the new spy chief.

iStock

New MI6 chief warns of acute Russian threat, urges tech-driven intelligence

Highlights

  • MI6's first female chief warns of aggressive Russian hybrid warfare including cyber attacks and drone incidents.
  • Defence chief Richard Knighton calls for 'whole of society approach' to build national resilience against growing threats.
  • New spy chief emphasises technology mastery, urging intelligence officers to be 'as comfortable with computer code as with human sources'.

The new chief of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, will warn of "the acute threat posed by Russia" when she makes her first public speech later today, highlighting hybrid warfare tactics including cyber attacks and drone incidents near critical infrastructure.

Metreweli will describe this as "an acute threat posed by an aggressive, expansionist and revisionist Russia" and warn that "the front line is everywhere".

Keep ReadingShow less