International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Chief Executive Dave Richardson on Friday asked Al Jazeera channel to release all the material they have relating to corruption within the cricket fraternity.
“I ask Al Jazeera to release to us all the material they have relating to corruption in cricket. We will conduct a full, thorough and fair investigation and will ensure no stone is left unturned as we examine all allegations of corruption made in the programme. To do so, we need to see all the evidence they state they possess,” said Richardson.
The Qatar-based Al Jazeera in a documentary has claimed that pitches of matches involving India, Sri Lanka, Australia and England were doctored at the behest of match-fixers. The matches in question were India vs Sri Lanka (Galle, July 26-29, 2017), India vs Australia (Ranchi, March 16-20, 2017) and India vs England (Chennai, December 16-20, 2016).
However, since then, Cricket Australia has rubbished the claims citing lack of evidence. However, Board of Control for Cricket in India decided to play the waiting game. “We believe ICC has started its probe. Let them complete that and pronounce Morris guilty. The BCCI will only act when they have the verdict in hand,” said a senior office-bearer of the BCCI.
ICC said that it will meet representatives of the channel insisting that the allegations will looked into. The ICC while launching an investigation had also said that the news network was refusing to share the unedited footage of the sting on its part. Richardson said they were going to meet Al Jazeera officials soon.
“I am encouraged by their public commitment to cooperate and now ask that they do so, in releasing all relevant material. We understand and fully respect the need to protect journalistic sources and our ACU team have worked with other media companies on that basis. However, to prove or disprove these allegations, we need to see the evidence referred to in the programme,” said Richardson.
