Members of the Sri Lankan team have been approached by people being described as "suspicious characters" more than once over the last year.
Team sources, however, told ESPNcricinfo that contrary to newspaper reports, the Sri Lankan team did not report any specific player to the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU).During the 2009 World Twenty20 in England, several players first brought to the notice of the Sri Lankan management that there were suspicious people "hanging around and trying to talk and approach". The matter was immediately reported to the ACSU, whereupon Alan Peacock, senior investigator of the unit, took statements from the players who had made the reports.
Nishantha Ranatunga, the SLC secretary, too, confirmed that "the report was handed over to ACSU by manager Brendon Kuruppu". The team management also got Peacock to speak to the team on these issues, and players were encouraged to report any approach openly.
That, though, was not the last time the team had to make such reports to the ACSU. There were other approaches since then, and the ICC and SLC had all the details. The source said the year had been a particularly difficult time "to hold the team together, and still manage to keep giving our best".
The source said: "We always wanted to make sure that whenever we played it was as clean as possible." The players were asked to report immediately "if there was any doubt".
"We wanted to make sure that the cricket board and the ACSU are given every opportunity to ensure the players are protected from these influences. Every opportunity was given to see if any player was guilty of it, to make sure those things were dealt with in tandem with the cricket board."
The source said one of the other issues around the entire anti-corruption exercise was the confidentiality of reporting approaches to the ICC. "Most of the time you might think twice [before reporting]," the source said. "If you find it reported in a newspaper, another newspaper can carry it, and so on... It has to be confidential. Players must report but people have to make sure they feel safe to do so. At the same time, the ICC's code itself makes it mandatory for players to report these things. You have to build the trust up. Players also want a clean game."
