The International Cricket Council (ICC) is investigating six allegations of corruption at a high-profile T10 league in Abu Dhabi, featuring four of England’s T20 World Cup winners. According to DailyMail, ICC’s Anti-Corruption unit received more than a dozen allegations regarding corrupt activity at the two-week tournament, half-of which have been deemed grave enough to initiate formal investigations.
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The DailyMail report has claimed that ICC is probing the possibility of unusual level of better activity, with around £15million staked using exchanges on a tournament where bookmakers were highly visible, and all the teams were sponsored by betting companies. The report further revealed that up to £800,000 was wagered on individual matches which attracted only a few hundred paying spectators.
Reportedly, ICC also received several reports regarding unsuspicious activity around the teams, including franchise owners dictating bowling and batting orders in advance without considering the conditions.
Sportsmail has claimed that the incident in which Darren Herft, owner of the Chennai Braves franchise, opened the batting alongside England batsman Dan Lawrence despite never playing a first-class game. Sportsmail also revealed that some of the 16 England internationals, who took part in the league, have yet to receive the final instalment of competition fees that range from £10,000 to £50,000, four weeks after the tournament finished.
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Reportedly, ICC received around 1,200 tip-offs from players regarding suspicious activities each year, which adds up to between 30 and 40 investigations annually.