COLOMBO, Dec 21: Sri Lanka’s cricket board called for a police investigation on Sunday after a large sum of cash was reportedly found in a hotel room that had been occupied by the national team’s vice-captain Marvan Atapattu.

An article in the Sunday Observer claimed that 1.1 million rupees ($11,480) had been found in a room occupied by Atapattu by a hotel employee shortly after Sri Lanka’s second Test against England in Kandy last week. Atapattu denied owning the money. “There was a news item today in one of the English newspapers stating that some money was found in a Kandy hotel room that had been occupied by one of our players,” said Ajit Jayasekera, the team manager, at a news conference on Sunday. “It implies that it was found in a room occupied by Mr Marvan Atapattu but he has denied totally that it is his money.

“There were several people that occupied that room after Marvan had left and it could be possible that the money belongs to someone else. “The cricket board will be conducting an inquiry into this and will get the CID to find out what really took place.“I’ve always been against match-fixing and have never been involved with bookies or match-fixers.”—Reuters/AFP