Ranatunga surrenders in
assault case

Former Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga surrendered on Wednesday to police investigating an alleged assault on a group of schoolboys who hit a cricket ball into the yard of Ranatunga's family home.

"Ranatunga came here with his lawyers and was taken straight to the magistrate," said an officer at Colombo's Maradana police station.

The magistrate will decide if Ranatunga should be released on bail while police complete their investigation and decide whether to lay formal charges.

Ranatunga, who became the country's sports idol in 1996 when he led Sri Lanka to a surprise win in the World Cup, returned to the island on Wednesday after playing a charity match in Kenya for victims of the Indian earthquake.

Police said they wanted to question Ranatunga and his brother Prasanna after a group of school boys said they were beaten up after getting into a dispute with domestic staff at the Ranatunga family home in Colombo last weekend.

The boys went to retrieve their cricket ball.

Prasanna, a local council politician, was granted bail on medical grounds when he surrendered earlier this week and he is currently at a private hospital in Colombo.

Seven students at Colombo's Asoka College received treatment in hospital after the alleged clash. College teachers and students took to the streets on Monday demanding the arrest of the Ranatungas, sons of a powerful cabinet minister.

Ranatunga's mother Nandanie said her children were not in the house at the time of the clash.

"I don't know who hit the school boys but it wasn't my sons because they were not in the house at the time," she said, adding that her domestic staff had been harassed by the boys.

The controversial Ranatunga, who was stripped of the captaincy after Sri Lanka's dismal attempt to defend the World Cup in 1999, retired last year after playing in his country's inaugural and centenary Tests.

He was one of nine former international captains named by an Indian police probe into cricket's match-fixing scandal, but he has denied any wrong-doing.

Mail Cricket Editor