By IANS
Sydney : Sri Lankan Cricket (SLC), counted as one of the strongest ally of the Indian cricket board, would have also pulled out of the upcoming triangular one-day international series if off-spinner Harbhajan Singh was not exonerated of racial abuse charges, the media reported here Wednesday.
Before Harbhajan was cleared Tuesday, SLC chairman and World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga said that his board would “wait to see what happens” before making a decision on whether to fulfil its touring commitments in Australia.
“We have not made any decision. We will wait to see the outcome (of the Harbhajan case) and we will go from there. We have come to Australia to play cricket. It is our strong hope that we can still play cricket but we will have to wait to see what happens before we can make any decision,” Ranatunga was quoted as saying by The Sydney Morning Herald.
SLC chief executive Duleep Mendis also said that the board was awaiting the result of the hearing. Asked whether he could confirm Sri Lanka’s participation in the one-day series in the event of an Indian withdrawal, Mendis said: “We will wait and see what decision is made”.
SLC secretary Kangadaran Mathivanan was an outspoken critic of the initial International Cricket Council (ICC) code-of-conduct hearing, at which Harbhajan was banned for three Tests by match referee Mike Procter for allegedly calling Andrew Symonds a ‘monkey’.
“We have a very good relationship with the Indian board, but I do not know what we will do until we, as a committee, sit down to discuss this. Our team is already in Sydney at the moment, so I hope the Indians will not end the tour, and the series can go on,” said Mathivanan.
Sri Lanka coach Trevor Bayliss too admitted Tuesday that talk of an Indian withdrawal had circulated around his team members, but he had been given no instruction as to what his board’s reaction would have been if such a move had taken place.