English county terminates fraud Lanka cricketer’s contract

Shankar represented Worcestershire in the CB40 and County Championship last week but had his contract torn up on Thursday,less than two weeks after he joined the club.

His contract was terminated without explanation from club officials,but according to Fox Sports,Shankar was cut loose when the club discovered he was not who he claimed to be.

When Shankar was signed on May 11,Worcestershire said the 26-year-old had just returned from a prolific season in Sri Lankan cricket.

“Adrian came to the club”s attention during the winter,which he spent playing cricket for Colombo in the Sri Lankan Mercantile League,” coach Steve Rhodes said at the time.

“He was the leading run scorer in the Twenty20 tournament with an average of over 52 and also scored three successive hundreds in the longer form of the game.”

It turns out that is not true.

In fact,Shankar is 29 and there is no record of him playing cricket at first-class or an equivalent level in Sri Lanka.

Several of the players who were supposed to have played against Shankar in Sri Lanka were actually playing elsewhere on the same days.

In a 10-year career,Shankar has played with Cambridge,Sussex,Worcestershire,Lancashire and Middlesex. In 13 matches at first-class level,he has an average of just 19 and has passed 50 only once in 21 innings. His highest score of 143 came in the Varsity Match of 2002 against a bowling attack described by Cambridge coach Chris Scott as “unbelievably bad”.

Scott also said of Shankar; “He was a poor player and there’s no way I would have recommended him.”