Sri Lankan police drop 2011 World Cup final fixing probe after questioning Sangakkara and Jayawardena

Former SL sports minister had alleged that SL sold the final to India in 2011.

Aravinda de Silva The Sri Lankan police have dropped the 2011 World Cup fixing probe due to lack of evidence on Friday, July 3, 2020. Former Minister of Sports Mahindananda Aluthgamage had alleged that Sri Lanka sold the final to India.

This had led to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Sports launching an investigation into the matter with Sri Lankan police doing the probe. The investigation saw then selector Aravinda de Silva, opener Upul Tharanga, Mahela Jayawardena, and then-captain Kumar Sangakkara being called for questioning.

On Thursday, the police had questioned then Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara for 10 hours, as per local media reports. While,Jayawardena, who scored a century in that match, appeared for questioning on Friday.

The police probed all the angles into the final, which saw India beat Sri Lanka by 6 wickets with Gautam Gambhir making 97 and MS Dhoni making 91*.  Sri Lanka had made four changes in the playing XI and Sangakkara had chosen to bat first after winning the toss at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on April 2, 2011.

"We are satisfied with their explanation. The inquiry is now closed. They had reasonable explanations about the changes that were made to the final squad. We found no evidence of any wrongdoing”, a top police official told AFP.

(AFP inputs)

 
 

By Jatin Sharma - 03 Jul, 2020

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