Sri Lanka cricketer Niroshan Dickwella’s disciplinary hearing linked to him having tested positive for cocaine is scheduled to take place on Friday (23), with the hearing set to decide the suspended player’s immediate future in the sport, ‘The Daily Morning Sports,’ understands.
Dickwella, 31, who has been playing international cricket since 2014, had reportedly failed a doping test conducted by SLADA and held in line with World Anti-Doping guidelines, during this year’s Lanka Premier League (LPL).
He has since been suspended indefinitely by the sport’s local controlling body-SLC from all activities connected to cricket.
It is also learnt that if found guilty at the disciplinary hearing, the cricketer concerned could be slapped with a four-year ban from the game in keeping with WADA regulations for those testing positive for banned substances-which could probably signal the end of the road for him.
Meanwhile, the player will also have the option of calling for a ‘B’ sample test to prove his innocence and even contest the outcome of the hearing, if he is imposed with a punishment by appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), informed sources revealed.
The wicket-keeper batter who led Galle Marvels in LPL 2024, had last represented his country in March 2023 but he had been recalled for Sri Lanka’s T20I series against Bangladesh earlier this year, though he did not play in a single game.
The southpaw, an old boy of Trinity College, Kandy has not been a stranger to controversy throughout his chequered career and is reported to have been told in no uncertain terms by the selectors most recently to mend his ways if he has wishes of nailing a permanent place in the national team.
This in light of his controversial off-field behaviour having invariably impacted on his regularly indifferent form on the field.
He was also most notably among three Sri Lanka players alongside batters Kusal Mendis and Dhanushka Gunathilake, who were initially banned for breaking the bio-bubble protocols during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, during the team’s ODI tour of England three years ago.
Dickwella, a deeply religious player who has scored 2757 runs in Tests, 1604 in ODIs and 480 in T20Is, has also been suspended from all cricketing activities by his domestic club NCC in the wake of the suspension imposed on him by the SLC .
(JK)