Bangladesh spinner punished with five-year ban for match-fixing attempt during Australia match

Bangladesh cricketer Shohely Akhter has been handed a five-year ban from all cricket matches by the International Cricket Council (ICC) following her involvement in match-fixing. The ICC found her guilty of breaching five provisions of the Anti-Corruption Code, making her the first female player to be banned for corruption. Akhter, an off-spinner who has played in 13 T20Is and two ODIs for Bangladesh, admitted to all the charges brought against her.

In the investigation by ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit (ICU), it was found that on 14 February 2023, prior to the Bangladesh vs Australia match in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023, Akhter contacted her friend and teammate (name not revealed) via Facebook Messenger, sending her voice notes in which she tried to persuade her to agree to carry out fixes in future Bangladesh matches.

Akhter told the teammate that her ‘cousin’ who bets on his phone, has asked whether she would get out hit wicket after a pace delivery during the Australia match. Akhter also told player that she would be paid 2 million Bangladesh takas if she did the fix, and the money would come from winnings that her ‘cousin’ made from his bets.

Promising to delete the voice notes and messages, Akhter assured the player that their conversation would be secret and it was up to her whether to say yes or no.

The player immediately rejected the approach and reported it to the ACU, providing the ACU with copies of the voice notes Akhter had sent her which she had forwarded on before they were deleted.

When interviewed by the ACU, Akhter confirmed sending the voice messages to the player but claimed that she only did so in order to show her friend, [Mr Z], that members of the Bangladesh team were not involved in fixing, not because she was genuinely making a corrupt approach. In her first interview with the ACU, Ms Akhter showed the ACU screenshots she claimed were between her and her friend talking about the ‘challenge’, claiming that these messages had been sent prior to 14 February.

However, after reviewing the messages, the ACU found out that the screenshots had actually been created after the approach on 14 February. Akhter subsequently admitted that she had fabricated these messages herself, using two different phones, although she claimed that the contents of the messages were accurate representations of messages that [Mr Z] had sent her which she had subsequently deleted once details of her approach to the player became public.

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