SRI LANKAN POLICE have arrested three British women who were found socialising in the hotel rooms of West Indies players, including star batsman Chris Gayle.
Police and hotel sources confirmed to AFP that the arrest took place at the Cinnamon Grand hotel in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Police bodyguards protecting players at the ongoing World Twenty20 arrested the three Britons at the deluxe hotel in Colombo and handed them over to the nearby police station for further investigations.
“Ministerial Security Division (MSD) guards assigned to protect the players carried out the arrest and the three women were handed over to the Kollupitiya police station for further investigations,” police said in a statement.
Hotel sources said the women were guests of Gayle and his teammates Andre Russell, Fidel Edwards and Dwayne Smith.
The sources insisted there was no breach of security at the tightly-guarded seventh floor reserved for players and team officials. A hotel source commented:
There was no wrongdoing on the part of the players or the women and we are surprised at the police action.
“It is not against the law to be a guest of a player.”
There was no immediate comment from the ICC or the West Indies team which will play Australia in the semi-finals on Friday.
Police sources said they were awaiting instructions from the International Cricket Council, the organisers of the World Twenty20, to establish if they should press charges.
On 24 September, a Sri Lankan broke into the rooms of two Australian cricketers at the same hotel and offered them sex. He was fined 1,000 rupees (around eight dollars) and handed a one-month suspended jail term.
The ICC had described it as a ‘minor isolated incident’.
The authorities had declared floors occupied by cricketers as out-of-bounds as part of security for players during the three-week tournament that was billed as the same level as for visiting heads of state.
The West Indies play Australia in the World T20 semi-finals on Thursday.
