Atapattu cleared of wrongdoing

Marvan Atapattu has been cleared of "any breach of conduct" following the discovery of 1.1 million rupees sum of cash in a hotel room that he'd occupied during the England tour of Sri Lanka. The announcement followed discussions between Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) officials and members of the International Cricket Council's Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU).

A two-man ACU team had travelled to Sri Lanka to investigate whether the cash find was suspicious as part of an ongoing worldwide probe into matchfixing. The cash had been disovered in Atapattu's room safe five days after the team's departure from their Kandy hotel. The room had been occupied by foreign guests afterwards, and Atapattu had denied the money was his.

"Members of the Anti-Corruption Unit of the ICC were in Sri Lanka to verify facts independently on the media reports published recently with regard to Rs. 1.1 Million being found in the hotel room that was occupied by many foreign guests as well as Mr. Marvan Atapattu in Kandy," said a SLC media release on Tuesday.

"These officials met officials of Sri Lanka Cricket and as there was no evidence of any breach of conduct on the part of the player concerned, there was no necessity to conduct an official inquiry."