The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Thursday issued a two-year ban on T10 league franchise owner of Sindhis, Deepak Agarwal, for two years.
Agarwal accepted one charge for breaching the Anti-Corruption Code. Deepak’s name came up after the investigation conducted on Shakib al Hasan, whom the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) handed a two-year ban for failing to report the board about being contacted by the bookie.
“I am obviously extremely sad to have been banned from the game I love, but I completely accept my sanction for not reporting the approaches,” Shakib commented last year after being handed BCB.
“The ICC ACU is reliant on players to play a central part in the fight against corruption and I didn’t do my duty in this instance,” added Shakib.
Reportedly, Agarwal contacted Shakib on several occasions in order to divulge information from the Bangladesh Cricket Team, to use it for betting purposes.
Also, ICC charged Deepak for the destruction of evidence. According to ICC, Deepak asked his accomplice to delete the messages exchanged between them during the probation period.
“In other words, Mr Agarwal instructed Mr X to conceal and/or destroy information which might be relevant to the ACU’s investigations. Mr Agarwal also instructed Mr X to lie to the ACU about when he had last spoken to Mr Agarwal, as they had had conversations during a time where Mr Agarwal had explicitly been told by the ACU not to engage with Mr X,” ICC stated in its press release.
The General Manager of ICC, Alex Marshall, further concurred that Deepak and his allies tried to sabotage the investigation by causing the delay.
“There were a number of examples of Agarwal obstructing and delaying our investigations and it was not just a one-off occurrence,” said Marshall.
Marshall also revealed that Deepak helped ICC’s case in the investigation by ‘prompt admission’ and continues to assist the apex cricketing body.
“However, he made a prompt admission of his breach of the ICC Anti-Corruption Code and continues to provide substantial assistance to the ACU in relation to several investigations involving other participants. This cooperation is reflected in his sanction,” he added.
