Indian co-owner of Sri Lankan cricket team held on bribery charge

Sri Lankan police detained the Indian co-owner of a Lanka Premier League franchise on Friday, just hours before the tournament’s opening match, on suspicion that he attempted to bribe a player.

Officers arrested the suspect, identified as Manjot Kalra, at a hotel in Colombo as he was preparing to hand over 9.5 million rupees, roughly 28,700 dollars, to the player, according to inspector Supun Vidanage of the Sports Investigation Unit. Vidanage said authorities planned to bring Kalra before a magistrate shortly after the arrest.

The player reported the approach to police about ten days earlier, when he was first contacted, Vidanage said, though he did not name the individual involved.

The sixth edition of the T20 tournament opened Friday night in Colombo with a match between the Jaffna and Galle franchises. Kalra serves as a co-owner of the Jaffna team.

The competition has faced repeated allegations of corruption throughout its history. In January, a Sri Lankan court sentenced the British owner of another franchise to a four year suspended prison term over match fixing. Bangladesh born Tamim Rahman, who owns the Dambulla Thunders franchise, admitted to attempting to influence a player and organize illegal betting activity. The court handed Rahman a four year jail term, suspended for five years, along with a fine of 24 million rupees. That conviction fell under a strict law enacted in 2019 aimed at rooting out corruption in Sri Lankan sports.

The latest arrest adds to a growing list of corruption cases tied to the tournament since its inception, raising fresh questions about oversight within the league’s ownership structure. Match fixing has long posed a persistent challenge for cricket administrators across South Asia, with domestic T20 leagues often seen as particularly vulnerable given the large sums of money involved and the relative ease of influencing individual players compared to national team matches. Sri Lanka’s 2019 anti corruption law was introduced specifically to address these vulnerabilities, granting authorities broader powers to investigate and prosecute attempts to manipulate matches. The latest case is likely to renew scrutiny of vetting procedures for franchise owners within the league, as officials continue efforts to protect the tournament’s integrity ahead of future editions.