DUBAI: Sri Lanka’s wicketkeeper batter Niroshan Dickwella has been cleared to play international cricket across formats, following a successful appeal against doping ban, the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed on Thursday.
Dickwella was handed a three-year ban after testing positive for a prohibited substance, following a random test conducted.
As a result, Sri Lanka Anti-Doping Agency (SLADA) imposed the ban in August 2024, which barred the left-handed batter to play professional cricket for three years.
However, in the latest turn of events, Dickwella appealed against the sanction and provided relevant experience to prove that he did not consume the prohibited substance during the competition period and also that it was not related to enhancing sports performance.
“Following a successful appeal, Dickwella's ban was lifted with immediate effect and he has been granted permission to play cricket across all formats,” the ICC announced in a statement.
He last represented Sri Lanka in March 2023 as he was part of the first Test of the two-match away series against New Zealand.
The left-handed batter only managed to score just seven runs in the aforementioned fixture and was thus dropped from the following Test.
Niroshan Dickwella was then named in Sri Lanka’s squad for the T20I series against Bangladesh but could not make it to the playing XI in either of the three matches.
For the unversed, it was the second instance when Dickwella was banned from playing professional cricket, the first being when Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) imposed a ban on him, alongside Danushka Gunathilaka and Kusal Mendis for breaching the bio-secure bubble protocols during team’s tour to England in 2021.
