Former Dambulla Thunders owner pleads guilty to fixing charges with Tamim Rahman handed a five-year suspended sentence .
Tamim Rahman, the former owner of the now-defunct Dambulla Thunders team in the Lanka Premier League (LPL), was found guilty of match-fixing and given a five-year suspended sentence that included four years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of LKR 24 million (roughly USD 78,000).
Before the 2024 LPL season, Rahman, a British national of Bangladeshi descent, was arrested in May 2024 as he was getting ready to leave the country. As a result, Sri Lanka Cricket dissolved the Dambulla Thunders franchise.
He was formally charged in October 2025 with trying to coerce a player participating in the 2024 LPL season into match-fixing under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Offences Relating to Sports Act No. 24 of 2019, which was created expressly to criminalise cases of match-fixing.
Rahman’s attorney had told the Colombo High Court in December 2025 that Rahman was willing to enter a guilty plea in order to speed up the legal process. Additionally, Mujeeb ur Rahman, a Pakistani national, has an outstanding arrest warrant for allegedly helping the plot.
The Thunders franchise was terminated, and it is now known as the Dambulla Sixers under new owners Sequoia Consultants, a US-based civil engineering consulting firm led by former Sri Lanka Under-19 cricketer Priyanga de Silva. This is the fourth ownership change since the LPL’s founding in 2020.
The first such case involving the LPL is the outcome of the anti-corruption case against Rahman. However, Anurag Thakkar, the owner of the Galle Marvels team in the Lanka T10 League, was found guilty of match-fixing in May 2025 and was permitted to leave the nation after paying fines.
Rahman’s conviction highlights the collaboration between Sri Lankan law enforcement and the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Corruption Unit, which first identified the suspicious activities, and establishes a strong precedent for the enforcement of Sri Lanka’s anti-corruption sports laws.
However, the entire situation has brought attention to Sri Lanka Cricket’s LPL owner screening procedure. Since the LPL’s first season in 2020, each team has seen at least three ownership changes, and as of the 2026 season, none of the teams are managed by their original owners.