The Sri Lankan cricket star charged with four rapes had “developed a playboy lifestyle” and struggled with discipline on and off the pitch, it has been revealed.
Danushka Gunathilaka’s history of suspensions from the Sri Lanka Cricket Board has come to light, as his lawyer told Daily Mail Australia that the 31-year-old struggles with not being able to see team supporters while he was transferred to Parklea prison in far west Sydney.
His lawyer Ananda Amaranath said he would try to visit the cricketer on Tuesday at the prison in Blacktown, 35 km west of the luxury hotel where his manager and Cricket Board officials were still staying.
Gunathilaka was arrested at the hotel around 1am on Sunday, handcuffed and taken to Surry Hills police cells and charged with raping a woman in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs during the T20 World Cup.
The first-class batsman was then taken to Parklea in a prison van after his bail request was denied on Monday.
Police allege that the 31-year-old had intercourse four times on Nov. 2 without the consent of a 29-year-old woman over a two-hour period in Rose Bay.
Sri Lanka Cricket has suspended Gunathilaka since the charges were filed and he will at least remain behind bars until he applies for bail again, this time at the NSW Supreme Court, for which Mr Amaranath said he had yet to file the documents.
Danushka Gunathilaka (pictured) was charged with the alleged rape of an Australian woman in a house in Sydney’s eastern suburbs
Danushka Gunathilaka, who has been transferred to Parklea Prison (above) in western Sydney while on remand on four rape charges, had ‘developed a party lifestyle’ with discipline issues on and off the pitch
Since his arrest and detention on remand, it has emerged that Gunathilaka had been suspended by Sri Lanka for ‘misconduct’ earlier in 2018 after a close associate was arrested for assault at the team’s hotel in Colombo.
Sri Lankan police initially claimed that a Norwegian woman was allegedly sexually assaulted in a hotel room by Sandeep Jude Selliah, 26, while his friend Gunathilaka was present.
“He (Gunathilaka) has said that he was asleep and unaware of what had happened between his friend and the Norwegian woman,” the Hindustan Times quoted an unnamed police officer as saying in a 2018 report.
No charges were filed against Selliah and there was no charge against Gunathilaka, who was Sri Lanka’s top-performing hitter at the time on a tour of South Africa.
However, Sri Lanka Cricket suspended him for ‘misconduct’, although he did allow him to play in the match that was still in progress at the time.
This followed a suspension the year before when, in October 2017, he missed practice one day and turned up without his gear bag the next, later earning him a six-game suspension, nine newspapers reported.
It has been reported that Gunathilaka developed the lifestyle of a playboy cricketer, without the possibility.
Gunathilaka (above) has been transferred to Parklea Prison in western Sydney, where he can access a television in his cell while in custody to watch the final matches of the T20World Cup
“He was not a popular player with the public, but seems to have good connections with Sri Lanka Cricket.”
In 2018, Gunathilaka was given a six-month suspension from Sri Lanka Cricket after violating the team’s curfew.
He later told ESPN India that he had been criticized for his lifestyle and “some people think I’m cocky, but I’m not.”
‘My lifestyle is different from that of some other Sri Lankan cricketers. But that doesn’t mean I’m a bad person,” he said.
When I’m in a bar, and I’m with my friends, I’m just there to relax. When people see me there they think I’m drinking and partying and I can’t play cricket.
‘I have no private life. They always say I’m going out and stuff. My lifestyle helps me relax.’
Last year, Gunathalika was banned for 12 months by Sri Lanka Cricket after breaking his team’s bio-safe bubble during the Covid pandemic while touring England along with teammates Kusal Mendis and Niroshan Dickwella.
Police have issued a suppression order limiting access to what can be reported about the 31-year-old’s alleged crimes, which will be reviewed in a hearing on Wednesday.
Danushka Gunathilaka (pictured) injured his hamstring but stayed with the team for their T20 World Cup Australia campaign
Gunathilaka’s match was plagued with recurring injuries to his back and hamstring, which forced him to miss Sri Lanka’s matches at the T20 World Cup in Sydney.
The injured star was arrested last weekend as he and teammates prepared to leave the country on Sunday after dropping out of competition on Saturday.
Gunathilaka, whose lawyer said he had no wife or children and lived at home with his parents in Colombo, unsuccessfully applied for bail in Downing Center local court on Monday during a hearing closed to the public.
Police had been issued a suppression order restricting access to what could be reported about the 31-year-old’s alleged crimes.
The waiver order will be the subject of a hearing at the Downing Center on Wednesday.
Gunathilaka appeared in court on Monday via an audiovisual link from Surry Hills Police Station, handcuffed and dressed in a gray T-shirt and blue jeans.
He has since relinquished his possessions for prison greens and runners.
His lawyer Ananda Amaranath said the cricketer was disappointed that his bail application had not been granted.
“He is holding up well under the circumstances,” Amaranath said outside the court on Monday.
“But he has the full support of the Sri Lankan High Commission and the Sri Lankan Cricket Board, so he’s okay at the moment.”
Gunathilaka’s attorney Ananda Amaranath said his client (pictured in a courtroom sketch) was disappointed that bail was not granted, but he was preparing to file documents for another application, in the NSW Supreme Court
Danusha Gunathilaka’s lawyer says the batsman (pictured) ‘holds on tight’ and has been transferred to Parklea prison in Sydney’s west
Mr Amaranath had previously said Gunathilaka would be “very concerned” if he were not able to return to Sri Lanka, as it could take a year or more for the case to be concluded.
Gunathilaka has played eight Tests for Sri Lanka, as well as 47 one-day internationals and 46 T20 matches, and despite not playing in the T20 World Cup, he had stayed in Australia with his Sri Lankan team-mates.
Sri Lanka finished fourth in Group One with two wins and three losses, including a narrow defeat to England at the SCG on Saturday night.
England will face group two winner India in the semi-finals in Adelaide on Thursday.
New Zealand will play second place in Group 2 against Pakistan at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Wednesday.
Reigning champions Australia will not defend their T20 title after failing to progress past the group stage.
Gunathilaka should have access to a television in his prison cell and free broadcasts of the T20 semi-finals and the final at the MCG on November 13.
The first-class batsman had been suspended from the Sri Lanka cricket board in the past due to disciplinary issues such as curfew violations and the biosafe bubble during the Covid pandemic
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