BCCI’s new anti-corruption wing head Ravi Sawani has submitted his inquiry report on allegations of corruption, including spot-fixing, levelled against five uncapped Indian players to the Board president.
A sting operation by a television channel had alleged that Shalabh Srivastava, Mohnish Mishra, TP Sudhindra, Amit Yadav and Abhinav Bali agreed to fix matches and discuss IPL contracts outside their existing ones with their franchises, prompting the BCCI to launch an investigation.
It is learnt that Sawani, a former head of ICC’s anti-corruption and security unit, interviewed all the five tainted players in person.
According to sources, the report will now be studied by the BCCI disciplinary committee comprising of president N Srinivasan, vice-presidents Arun Jaitley and Niranjan Shah, though no date has been fixed for the panel to meet.
The three-member committee will now study the report and then decide on the final action to be taken against the five players, who were suspended by the Board, under BCCI and IPL’s codes of conduct.
According to the channel, its sting operation also revealed that spot-fixing is not only prevalent in IPL but also that first class matches were being fixed and women played an important role in match-fixing.
Not just the cricket fraternity, the expose also rocked the Indian Parliament and former players and cricket administrators called for strong action to get rid of corruption from the game.
