Samuels charged by ICC
Former test player has 14 days to respond
Marlon Samuels, the former West Indies batsman, has been charged with four counts of breaching cricket’s anticorruption code during the T10 League in Abu Dhabi.
Samuels, a hero of West Indies’ two World Twenty20 titles in 2012 and 2016, played 71 tests and had a long-running rivalry with England’s Ben Stokes.
Samuels was banned for two years in 2008 after being found guilty of colluding with a bookmaker during a West Indies tour of India.
He bounced back and revitalised his international career and was at the crease during their remarkable last-over victory against England in the World Twenty20 final of 2016.
Samuels and Stokes first clashed in the Caribbean in 2015. Samuels sarcastically saluted Stokes when he got out for eight on the third day of the test in Grenada after the pair had exchanged angry words.
They crossed swords during the 2016 World Twenty20 final at Eden Gardens, with Samuels criticising Stokes afterwards and saying he pumped him up with a sledge as West Indies struggled early in their innings.
After Carlos Brathwaite smashed four sixes off Stokes to win the game, Samuels, who was at the non-striker’s end, swore at Stokes and ripped his shirt off as he gesticulated towards the England bench.
“Well, he [Stokes] doesn’t learn. I didn’t even face a ball and he had so much to say to me that I knew I had to be right there at the end, again.
“That’s what I thrive on,” Samuels said. “Stokes is a nervous laddie, so what I told Brathwaite was to just hold his pose and he’s going to bowl a couple of full tosses — as always — and it will work in our favour.”
There will be little sympathy from England for Samuels, who now faces his second run-in with the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit, which has relentlessly pursued players, under the guidance of Alex Marshall, a former chief constable, over the past four years.
Samuels was charged with four counts of breaking the code of conduct for failing to disclose gifts “that could bring the participant or the sport of cricket into disrepute”, failing to disclose a “receipt of hospitality with a value of $750 (NZ$1053) or more” and failing to co-operate with an investigation and “obstructing or delaying” an investigation.
Samuels, 40, announced his retirement from international cricket last year, but was playing in the T10 league run by the Emirates Cricket Board.
Cricket West Indies said in a statement that it had been “made aware of the charges” against Samuels.
“While CWI has yet to receive detailed information relating to this ICC investigation, CWI remains firm in denouncing any such activities within the sport and fully supports the ICC anti-corruption unit in their efforts to rid the sport of all corruption,” said CWI.
Samuels has 14 days to respond to the charges.
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