Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga and his World Cup-winning teammate Aravinda de Silva have denied the match-fixing allegations made by Thilanga Sumathipala. Earlier, Ranatunga had accused Sumathipala’s family of having links with bookies.

Sumathipala, the former SLC president, previously made the allegations that the two former cricketers were the first ones from the country to be named for match-fixing. According to him, they took money from an Indian bookmaker to lose the Lucknow Test in 1994, which India had won by an innings and 119 runs.

He had said: “Arjuna and Aravinda were the names mentioned, they were alleged to have taken 15,000 dollars from someone named Gupta.”

In response to the allegations, Ranatunga said they could’ve thrown the World Cup for thousand times the alleged amount of money in 1996, if they were corrupted.

“Not 15,000 dollars, but we could have made 15 million dollars if we threw the World Cup.

“We have never taken bribes and we have never fixed matches,” said the World Cup-winning captain.

De Silva, on the other hand, questioned Sumathipala’s decision to have him serve the SLC under his (Sumathipala’s) presidency.

He said: “If I was someone to fix matches, why did he (Sumathipala) have me in his Cricket Committee?”