The incident took place today morning (July 5). As per media reports, the victim was a local resident. He was rushed to hospital following the accident, but could not be rescued. An investigation is underway to find out whether or not Mendis was driving under the influence of alcohol. Mendis is likely to be produced before a magistrate soon.
Mendis, a 25-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman, has so far featured in 44 Tests and 76 ODIs for Sri Lanka, scoring 2995 and 2167 runs respectively. He has nine international centuries to his credit -- seven in Tests and two in ODIs.
The aggressive batsman took part in the team’s training session held post COVID-19 lockdown. The training camp held at Pallekele finished on Wednesday. Like all other countries, Sri Lanka’s international cricketing assignments too have been cancelled as of now in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic. The lockdown in the country though ended a few days ago.
Sri Lankan cricket was under a storm recently when bigwigs like Aravindra De Silva, Kumar Sangakkara and former opener Upul Tharanga were quizzed over match-fixing allegations pertaining to the 2011 World Cup final.
--By A Cricket Correspondent