Five captains approached by fixers over the last year - ICC
Five captains, including four from the fullmember teams, have reported fixing approaches to the governing body’s Anti-corruption Unit from June 2017 to date, the International Cricket Council (ICC) revealed.
The announcement was made just hours after Afghanistan wicket-keeper batsman Mohammad Shahzad reported a spot-fixing approach to ICC’S Anti-corruption Unit.
The approach had been made during the Asia Cup to under-perform during the inaugural edition of the Afghan Premier League to be played in Sharjah from October 5 to 23.
At a media day held at the ICC headquarters on the sidelines of the Asia Cup, the ICC’S Anti-corruption Head Alex Marshall did not divulge names for obvious reasons but said the investigations are ongoing.
“Corruptors love captain,” Mr. Marshall said “We had five captains approached during the last 12 months. If you look at some of the famous cases in the history, all of them have the captains involved, because he has the control of the team”.
Mr. Marshall said that there had been 32 investigations during the last 12 months out of which 23 cases are against those directly involved in cricket including eight cases against player suspects.
“There have been 32 investigations in the last 12 months, eight involve players as suspects,” he said. “Five of them involve administrators or non-playing personnel. Three of these individuals have been charged.” Sri Lanka is among those countries being investigated.
The ICC anti-corruption sleuths visited Sri Lanka several times to conduct investigations and a recent sting operation by Al Jazeera—a Qatar based media house— alleged that several Sri Lankans, including two former players, attempted to fix for financial gains.
Marshall praised the efforts of journalists involved in the sting operation but asked them to be divulge information in full if they wanted the culprits be brought to book.
Despite repeated appeals by the ICC, the TV channel has refused to release the unedited footage of the sting operation.
There are now many more opportunities for corruptors to fix matches, especially with mushrooming T20 leagues around the globe which Marshall said were “more vulnerable to corruption”.
He also highlighted the need to keep educating players about the many methods being used by fixers to trap players.
“There are a host of new opportunities,” he elaborated. “The 19s, women’s cricket but they particularly like T20s and, if they can’t get to the franchise, they can’t get to the financial backers, they design their own corrupt tournament.”
“We try to link up with the intelligence,” he continued. “We look at what we know about this event...are we providing anticorruption cover, are we already there or is it being provided by another party? Are there any other strands of intelligence we have about that tournament? Is there anything about financial backers or the people surrounding the tournament that is suspicious?”
“We never launch off an investigation just because something looks odd on the field or we get a single anonymous report,” he said. “We get quite a lot of single, anonymous reports. We start putting the pieces together and if there’s sufficient reason to think on reasonable grounds that we must start investigating this, then we take it on.
We do find a lot of corruptors who move between formats of international and domestic, because they’re looking for the opportunity and vulnerability.”
The ICC is reviewing the regulations surrounding the approving of these leagues, said ICC CEO David Richardson, at a press conference.
“The intention is to introduce minimum standards,” he explained. “Not as a barrier to entry but simply as mechanism to better control who is involved in these leagues, who’s putting them on and minimize the risk of being corrupted.”