{"id":8939,"date":"2023-09-29T01:53:05","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T01:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/sri-lanka-cricketer-gunathilaka-cleared-of-sexual-assault-in-australia\/"},"modified":"2023-09-29T01:53:05","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T01:53:05","slug":"sri-lanka-cricketer-gunathilaka-cleared-of-sexual-assault-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/sri-lanka-cricketer-gunathilaka-cleared-of-sexual-assault-in-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka cricketer Gunathilaka cleared of sexual assault in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>Sri Lankan cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka was cleared of sexual assault in Sydney on Thursday, saying outside the court that he \u201ccan\u2019t wait\u201d to play again.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old batsman was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1719621\">arrested<\/a> in November last year just hours after his country lost to England in their final Twenty20 World Cup match in Australia.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--left  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1758745\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>He was initially accused of four counts of sexual intercourse without consent after arranging to meet a woman at a bar near the Sydney Opera House through a dating app.<\/p>\n<p>Three of those charges were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1754250\">dropped<\/a> in May.<\/p>\n<p>On the remaining count, Judge Sarah Huggett found him not guilty, according to a document provided by the New South Wales District Court in Sydney.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe last 11 months have been really hard for me,\u201d Gunathilaka told reporters outside the court.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone believed me, so that means a lot to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am happy that my life is normal again so I can\u2019t wait to go back and play cricket,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors had argued he removed a condom during sex without telling the woman, who had only agreed to protected sex, according to a report by Australian public broadcaster <em>ABC<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But the judge said the woman did not have a clear memory of what happened at the time, it said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--left  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1721529\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Gunathilaka made his international debut in 2015 and has played eight Tests, 47 ODIs and 46 T20s. Sri Lanka Cricket suspended him after he was charged.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lankan cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka was cleared of sexual assault in Sydney on Thursday, saying outside the court that he \u201ccan\u2019t wait\u201d to play again. The 32-year-old batsman was arrested in November last year just hours after his country lost to England in their final Twenty20 World Cup match in Australia. He was initially accused [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/09\/281117061d52aad.jpg?r=111723","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}