The Board of Control for Cricket in India Anti-Corruption Unit head Ajit Singh on Tuesday said that investigations into Shakib Al Hasan’s breach of anti-corruption code during a game during last year’s Indian Premier League was handled by the International Cricket Council.
Shakib was suspended by the ICC for two years, including one year of “suspended sentence” for failing to report a corrupt approach on three separate occasions. There was also an alleged approach made by Indian bookie Deepak Aggarwal during the 2018 IPL.
The match referred in ICC’s verdict on Shakib was played between his IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kings XI Punjab on April 26, 2018. Sunrisers won the game by 13 runs.
“That particular IPL season we are referring to, the anti-corruption matters were handled by the ICC. So the complete investigation was carried out by the ICC. The BCCI has no role in it,” Singh, a former DGP of Rajasthan, was quoted as saying by PTI.
Singh, in fact, replaced former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar after IPL 2018. Asked about the alleged bookie Aggarwal, who is said to have made those corrupt approaches, Singh said: “We provided the necessary inputs from our end but the entire investigation was carried out by the ICC ACU.
“These messages on April 26, 2018 included a number of deleted messages. He [Shakib] confirmed that these deleted messages contained requests from Mr Aggarwal for Inside Information,” the ICC stated.
Aggarwal’s other two approaches were during the Bangladesh Premier League, when Shakib was playing for Dhaka Dynamites in 2017, followed by the tri-series against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka in January 2018.