SRI LANKA FIXING FEARS

CRICKET’s anti-corruption unit are on alert for matchfixing approaches ahead of england’s upcoming Test series in sri Lanka, Sportsmail can reveal.

It follows an International Cricket Council probe into corruption at last month’s sri Lankan Premier League, in which two people are being investigated.

The head of ICC’s anti-corruption unit Alex marshall told Sportsmail: ‘You could never say any cricket match is guaranteed to be clean. What you can say is these are the top-level players, the consequences for them getting involved in anything like this is career- ending and masses of publicity.

‘ We banned sanath Jayasuriya, he’s just come back after a two-year ban. That’s a very big name in Sri Lanka. You’d risk being caught by the police and sent to jail — it’s a massive risk for them.’

In a bid to thwart any wrongdoing, marshall’s team will give england and sri Lanka a more detailed briefing than they would in other countries, showing pictures and names of criminals who could approach them.

one of the pictures likely to be shown is that of Aneel munawar, an alleged matchfixer who, 18 months ago, Sportsmail pictured standing yards from two england cricketers in a sri Lanka hotel during the 2012 World Twenty20.

‘When we do the education session, we don’t just say the code,’ marshall said. ‘We now tell them how the corrupters in sri Lanka operate, what attempts they have made, and we show them pictures and names of all the active corrupters we think might approach them.

‘We started it 18 months ago and did it for all the teams for the first time at the 2019 World Cup.’

marshall notes, however, that sri Lankan cricket is in a better place than it was in the past. ‘A couple of years ago, lots of our cases came from sri Lanka. There are still cases which are going through the tribunal system. But it is different now as they have introduced legislation which make sports corruption a crime — previously it wasn’t, so there’s a risk of going to jail.’