Five international captains have been approached by bookies over the past 12 months, the International Cricket Council General Manager (Anti-Corruption) Alex Marshall has informed. Four of those captains are from the ICC Full Member countries, while the other one represents an Associate.
Today, the Afghanistan team management, according to an ICC source, raised an alleged spot-fixing approach to Mohammad Shahzad with the global body’s Anti-Corruption Unit. The ‘keeper-batsman was allegedly approached to under-perform in the inaugural edition of the Afghan Premier League T20 tournament, to be played in Sharjah from October 5 to 23. Shahzad immediately informed the team management about the approach.
“Corruptors love captains. They look for intermediaries. They look for weak links. Five international captains — four Full Members, one non-Full Member — were approached in the last one year. The corruptors like T20s. They like the explosion of T20 tournaments,” Marshall said, as the ICC hosted a media day at its headquarters in Dubai on Monday. Some startling facts emerged. Over the past 12 months, the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit conducted 32 investigations and out of those, 23 originated from the participants’ report.
Both ICC chief executive David Richardson and Marshall were asked about the contradiction. “I’m sure a lot of bookmakers like T20s. But I don’t think it’s correct to say that the increasing number of T20s will increase the (corruption) risk. The bottom line is that the T20 format has attracted new fans and with more people following the game, the bigger the risk that there could be efforts to corrupt the matches. So it’s an indirect relationship between T20 cricket and the increase of corruption risk. But T20 cricket has increased the number of fans. And if that so happens (the increasing risks of corruption), Alex (Marshall) will have to work a little bit harder,” Richardson said.
