Star Sri Lankan cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka had plenty of opportunity to covertly remove a condom during rough sex with a Sydney woman, a court has heard.
As the 32-year-old's sexual assault trial entered its final day on Thursday, crown prosecutor Gabrielle Steedman said the sportsman should be found guilty of "stealthing" a woman he relentlessly pursued.
She said Gunathilaka unsuccessfully tried to negotiate out of wearing the condom during sex at the woman's eastern suburbs home and became annoyed when she would not give in.
"The accused has no other choice than to put that condom on right in front of her there and then or (the sex) doesn't happen."
The alleged victim matched with Gunathilaka on Tinder before they met at Sydney's Opera Bar on November 2, 2022.
They later had a pizza dinner in the city centre and caught a ferry to the woman's home.
In her bedroom, the cricketer allegedly slapped and choked the woman during sex Ms Steedman described as "rough and wild".
"The complainant was in a vulnerable position where the accused was in control of what he was doing with his hands," she told Judge Sarah Huggett.
"The suggestion he did not have an opportunity in which to physically remove the condom is not correct. There was plenty."
Before and after the sex, Gunathilaka did not respect the woman's wishes and boundaries, consistent with someone who would secretly take off a condom he did not wish to wear, Ms Steedman said.
But Gunathilaka's barrister, Murugan Thangaraj SC, attacked the woman's credibility, rejecting claims she had been an honest, consistent witness.
He said the alleged victim had morphed her allegations over time to create a false narrative that the batter was an arrogant, forceful and aggressive man.
Mr Thangaraj said the court should instead accept the cricketer was respectful of his date and that the pair had engaged in consensual sex by candlelight, followed by an intimate discussion in which she said they had a connection from a past life.
The woman's evidence that there had been no pause in the sex, which had been at times fast and slow, was fatal to the prosecution case that Gunathilaka had somehow removed the condom without her knowledge or consent, he said.
"She describes continuous sexual activity … that ends it," he told Sydney's Downing Centre District Court.
"The Crown cannot prove its case at all."
While the woman was initially unsure about the alleged stealthing when talking to her friends and a doctor the morning after the alleged assault, she suddenly became more certain days later after spending hours with police while forming her statement, the barrister said.
He also criticised police for throwing out crucial notes and failing to take records of their first conversations with the complainant.
"We have a deeply flawed police investigation, parts of which Your Honour would be deeply troubled by, which leads to the evolution of an uncertain position (about stealthing) morphing into a definitive position," he said.
While there was evidence the woman's lips and breast were bruised after meeting the cricketer, Mr Thangaraj said this could have occurred after "impassioned perhaps even clumsy consensual sex".
He said the court should accept the cricketer's version of events, saying the complainant had later changed her perceptions of the night.
"What we do know is she has edited a number of issues in her mind, all of which are in a way which reinforces the narrative that she wants to present," he said.
Gunathilaka has been on bail in Sydney during the trial but has been unable to play cricket or return to his hometown of Colombo in Sri Lanka due to the charge against him.
Judge Huggett will deliver her verdict on September 28.
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National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
