Anirudh Chaudhry, the BCCI treasurer has questioned former Pakistan player Shahid Afridi for not reporting ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit about the 2010 spot-fixing case, despite being aware of the issue which was going in the team as some of the players were getting close to Mazhar Majeed, then player agent. However, Anirudh Chaudhry took to Twitter and wrote: “Actually, once he became aware, he ought to have immediately reported it to the Anti Corruption Unit of the @ICC. How the ACU dealt with the information of him not having reported this would be interesting because it was a failure of his obligation Inder the code.”
Actually, once he became aware, he ought to have immediately reported it to the Anti Corruption Unit of the @ICC . How the ACU dealt with the information of him not having reported this would be interesting because it was a failure of his obligation Inder the code. https://t.co/BDUoHuV505
— Anirudh Chaudhry (@AnirudhChaudhry) May 4, 2019
Moreover, The ICC rule, as accessed by IANS, says: “Participants must report all approaches, or information regarding corrupt conduct, or invitation to engage in corrupt conduct, to the appropriate ACU, without unnecessary delay.”
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The things started when it was revealed that Afridi has written in his autobiography ‘Game Changer’ that he had the idea of the spot-fixing by his teammates Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif before the 2010 spot-fixing scandal came into limelight. However, he further added that when he tried to ask about it to the team management, he didn’t get any proper reply and out of frustration due to inaction, he had to leave the Test captaincy and eventually took retirement from the format as well.
“Yes. For the record, I gave up. I quit,” Afridi wrote.
“I got hold of the original evidence in the racket — phone messages that would eventually come into play against players involved in the spot-fixing controversy,” he added. “When I took that evidence to the team management, what happened next didn’t inspire much confidence in those tasked with managing and running the affairs of Pakistan’s national cricket team.”
“Before the Sri Lanka tour, Majeed and his family had joined the team during the championship. At one of the Sri Lankan beaches, Majeed’s young son dropped his father’s mobile phone in the water and it stopped working. Majeed gave the phone for repair to a shop whose owner was a ‘friend of a friend’. While fixing the phone, the shop owner, when asked to retrieve the messages came across Majeed’s messages to players of the Pakistan team. Though he shouldn’t have seen what he did, it was that leak from him to my friend and a few others (whom I won’t name) that looped me in on the scam,” he added that in the book.
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Along with this, Afridi also shared that after his try, Pakistan team management didn’t take the conversations seriously, hence, no action was taken on that as well.
“When I received those messages back in Sri Lanka, I showed them to Waqar Younis, then coach of the team. Unfortunately, he didn’t escalate the matter. Both Waqar and I thought it was something that would go away, something that wasn’t as bad as it looked, just a dodgy conversation between players and Majeed, at worst. But the messages weren’t harmless banter — they were part of something larger, which the world would soon discover,” the former Pakistan player wrote.
