Cricket Australia has clarified that the none of the former or current Australian players have involvement in the corruption issues coined after the Al Jazeera documentary which alleged fixing charges on the cricketers of India, Sri Lanka, and Australia. Previously, an Al Jazeera documentary alleged that Australian players were involved in corrupt activity during the drawn Test with India in Ranchi in March 2017.
The power-hitting all-rounder Glenn Maxwell was not named in the documentary, but match footage suggested he was one of those being accused of the supposed fixing. Maxwell, later, said that he was “shocked” and “hurt” by being implicated in the film. The second Al Jazeera documentary surrounds spot-fixing claims against Australian players relating to historical matches from 2011.
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In a statement, Cricket Australia’s CEO, James Sutherland, said: “We are aware of the new investigative documentary by Al Jazeera into alleged corruption in cricket. Since the broadcast of Al Jazeera’s first documentary, the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit has been conducting a thorough investigation into the claims made, however, this has been hampered by a lack of cooperation from Al Jazeera. Although not having been provided an opportunity to review any raw audio or footage, our long-standing position on these matters is that credible claims should be treated very seriously, and investigated.”
Clarifying the things further, Sutherland asserted that Cricket Australia’s Integrity Unit has conducted a review of the latest claims by Al Jazeera, from a known criminal source, and, from the limited information provided by Al Jazeera, their team has not identified any issues of corruption relating to current or former Australian cricketers.
Sutherland concluded, “We have handed all material over to the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit to enable them to fully investigate and we will continue to cooperate with the ICC. It is important to reiterate that Cricket Australia and the ICC take a zero-tolerance approach against anyone trying to compromise the integrity of the game. We urge Al Jazeera to provide all un-edited materials and any other evidence to the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit.”
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The International Cricket Council (ICC) in May strongly criticised Al Jazeera for not giving the global governing body unedited documentary footage from the original film to aid their own probe into the accusations. Talking about the same in a statement, Alex Marshall of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) said, ” We will provide a full update at the conclusion of the investigation. Access to the raw, unedited footage enables us to build a complete picture around the claims in the documentary and ensure our investigation is as fair and thorough as possible.”
