Shafaq Served a Six-year Suspension on Match Fixing cricket bangladesh
Afghanistan wicketkeeper-batsman Shafiqullah Shafaq has been suspended from all aspects of cricket for six years on Sunday after admitting match-fixing allegations. The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) claimed that the 30-year-old had scheduled or attempted to schedule matches in the inaugural Afghanistan Premier League T20 in 2018 and the Bangladesh Premier League in 2019.
The ABC announced in a statement that Shafaq has been charged for violation of the anti-corruption code pertaining to contriving in some manner or otherwise inappropriately influencing or becoming a party to some arrangement. In the statement Shafaq was also charged with finding, receiving, promising or agreeing to take some bribe or other incentive in order to correct or contrive in some way or otherwise to inappropriately affect the result, advancement, behavior or some other element of any domestic match.
Match fixing has shaken the cricket world in the last two decades with life bans on late South African skipper Hansie Cronje, Pakistan’s Salim Malik and Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin. But this is the first case involving a player from Afghanistan after the country underwent a fairytale increase in international cricket in 2009. ACB ‘s senior anti-corruption officer, Sayed Anwar Shah Quraishi mentioned that this is a very severe crime when a senior national player is engaged in the corruption of a high-profile domestic game. The player even attempted but failed to get one of his teammates to participate in corruption in another high-profile game during the 2019 BPL he added.
The ACB said Shafaq is able to contribute to potential dignity awareness projects to enable inexperienced players benefit from their errors. In September of last year, Shafaq played the last of his 46 Twenty20 internationals in Afghanistan. He played 24 one-day internationals for his country as well.
