Two Hong Kong cricketers have been handed out life bans while another one has been suspended for five years. They were provisionally suspended by ICC in October after being charged for “fixing or contriving” aspects of Hong Kong’s World Cup qualifiers against Scotland and Canada in 2014.
The back story
Irfan Ahmad was found guilty of nine offences under the ICC’s anti-corruption code which include fixing, failing to inform ICC about the approaches from bookies and accepting bribes. On the other hand, his brother Nadeem Ahmad and Haseen Amjad were found guilty of three offences each. The Anti-Corruption Tribunal heard the evidence from all three cricketers and stated that they fixed or contrived to fix games and “failed to disclose approaches to fix during a number of international fixtures across a two-year period”.
The anti-corruption unit’s general manager Alex Marshall said “This has been a long and complex investigation which has uncovered systematic attempts to influence moments in matches by experienced international cricketers over a period of time. Their conduct was premeditated and sophisticated and each of the Ahmed brothers sought to corrupt others.”
ICC aims to a corruption-free sport
He further informed that the main offences are related to the Hong Kong matches against Scotland and Canada where the players fixed specific overs. Hong Kong won these matches so it did not materially affect the results of the tournament. “With the fixers finding it harder than ever before to penetrate the highest levels of the game, we are increasingly seeing them turn their attention to other avenues in the sport and we will continue to work with Members to ensure players at all levels are educated about the dangers of corruption.”, he added.
According to him the severity of the offences is reflected in the sanctions. But he hopes that these by ICC would further discourage other players from taking this path to ensure of demonstrating a corruption-free sporting world.
