Sri Lanka board denies reporting Broad

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has denied reporting match referee Chris Broad to the ICC for "boozing" with Australia's players during the recent series. Mohan de Silva, the president of SLC, claims that he was misquoted by a reporter from the state-run Sunday Observer newspaper.

In an open letter to the journalist, de Silva said: "I have noted that you by error have made a reference to me with regards to the claim that match referee Chris Broad was found boozing with the Australian players. I wish to state that at no time did I confirm this story and neither has Sri Lanka Cricket reported any incident involving Mr. Broad and Australian players to the ICC. As such it is clear that I have been misquoted in the said story."

De Silva's comments follow a terse statement from the ICC last week: "The allegations attributed to Sri Lanka Cricket are serious and significant yet there is not one piece of evidence offered to support them," said Malcolm Speed, the ICC's chief executive. "There are no specifics - no places, no dates, no times - and it is disappointing that a national board would elect to make disparaging comments about an ICC match official without providing any material to support these comments.

The newspaper allegations came within the context of Broad's reporting of Muttiah Muralitharan's doosra, a decision that promoted outrage and charges of racial bias in some quarters, but was later justified as biomechanical tests showed that Muralitharan's arm straightened by double the legal limit.

Sri Lanka Cricket has faced increasing criticism for its handling of the issue, including the treatment of Broad and the partial leaking of the Muralitharan report to the Sunday Times newspaper, which forced the ICC into making a statement on Muralitharan's doosra even before receiving the official report.