Heath Streak, the former Zimbabwe captain, has been slapped with an eight-year ban in all forms of cricket by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for breaching the Anti-Corruption Code.
The charges date back to his coaching days of the Zimbabwe national team from 2016-18 and various franchises, including the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in IPL 2018, Kabul Zwanan in the Afghanistan Premier League (APL) 2018, and the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) 2017.
Though the 47-year-old denied the charges, he admitted to them later after a thorough proceeding by the governing body.
The first of the five charges is introducing four players, including a national captain, to a certain corruptor labelled by the ICC as ‘Mr X’, and the second one is disclosing confidential information about the tri-series involving Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka, and also the Zimbabwe-Afghanistan series of 2018. He is also charged for revealing information about the IPL and APL, both in 2018.
The other three charges include his failure to come up with receipts of the payments and gifts he received for his corrupt practices. Two such gifts include an iPhone and two bitcoins amounting to US$35,000.
Streak also didn’t disclose the potential corrupt practices of BPL 2017, IPL 2018, APL 2018 and the Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2018.
The last charge laid out against him is the delaying of information in the investigation by concealing or destroying the evidence of the malpractices.
Alex Marshall, the ICC General Manager (GM) of Integrity Unit, said that as a captain and coach, it was Streak’s duty to uphold the integrity of the game.
“As a former captain and coach, he held a position of trust and owed a duty to uphold the integrity of the game,” said Marshall.
He further added that the former-right-hand-pacer had expressed remorse for his conduct and the thing which went in his favour was that these practices didn’t affect the outcome of any game.
“The offences did not affect the outcomes of any relevant matches and Mr Streak has agreed to assist the ICC anti-corruption education programme,” stated Marshall.
Streak has been banned from every form of the game for eight years and can resume participation in the game’s duties from March 28, 2029.
The first Zimbabwean bowler to cross the 100 Test wicket mark, Streak has played 65 Tests and 189 ODIs and bagged 216 and 239 wickets, respectively.
