Colombo: Australian officials cleaned shoes of Sri Lankan cricket players when they arrived in the country for a tri-nation tournament, the Australian High Commission (embassy) here said.

In a letter to the state-run 'Daily News', the High Commission said Wednesday that the Sri Lankan cricketers spent a little over an hour at the airport and they were subjected to the same quarantine checks as other passengers.

The 'Daily News' had said that the cricketers were detained for two and a half hours at Brisbane airport on Wednesday while authorities went through their bags and demanded they wash their shoes before entering Australia.

"Cricket shoes of international teams are routinely checked for quarantine purposes," the High Commission said. "Australian officials cleaned the shoes, not the (Sri Lankan) team members."

The 'Daily News' on Saturday asked for a Foreign Ministry probe into the affair and said Sri Lankan players did not "deserve this type of humiliation to play cricket in a nation ruled by convicts."

The paper said the "harassment" at the airport was seen by the team as a "ploy of gaining a psychological hold" over them ahead of the One-day cricket series against Australia and England, which began on Friday.

England scored a 43-run victory over Sri Lanka in its triangular One-day series match at the Gabba in Brisbane on Tuesday.

Copyright AFP 2001

Extras:
'Nation ruled by convicts harasses Lankan cricketers'