According to the latest reports, Afghanistan cricket star Shafiqullah Shafaq has been banned from participating in any form of cricket for the next six years after he was found guilty of breaching the Anti-corruption code of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB). The wicketkeeper-batsman has been involved in 24 ODI's and 46 T20I's so far and has piled up 924 runs in his career so far.
Shafaq, who has been a part of the Afghanistan first-team squad on a regular basis in recent times, was found guilty of breaching four articles of ACB's anti-corruption code while participating in the Bangladesh Premier League 2019 edition and the maiden edition of the Afghanistan Premier League in 2018.
The player has been found guilty of not abiding by the following rules as prescribed in the Anti-corruption code of the Afghanistan Cricket Board.
"Article 2.1.1 – Fixing or contriving in any way or otherwise influencing improperly, or being a party to any agreement or effort to fix or contrive in any way or otherwise influence improperly, the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of any Domestic Match, including (without limitation) by deliberately underperforming therein.”
"Article 2.1.3 – Seeking, accepting, offering or agreeing to accept any bribe or other Reward to (a) fix or to contrive in any way or otherwise to influence improperly the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of any Domestic Match …”
"Article 2.1.4 – Attempting to solicit, induce, entice, persuade, encourage or intentionally facilitate a Participant to breach Article 2.1.”
"Article 2.4.4 – Failing to disclose to the Designated Anti-Corruption Official (without unnecessary delay) full details of any approaches or invitations received by a Participant to engage in Corrupt Conduct under ACB Anti-Corruption Code.”
The 30-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman has accepted all the aforementioned charges and has been restricted from taking part in any type of activities related to cricket for the next 6 years, which puts his career in jeopardy for sure.
Speaking about the same, the Senior Anti-Corruption manager of ACB, Sayed Anwar Shah Quraishi said, “This is a very serious offence where a senior national player is involved in the corruption of a high-profile domestic game in APL T20 2018. The player had also attempted but failed to get one of his teammates to engage in corruption in another high-profile game during the BPL 2019. It is an alert for all those players who think their illegal activities concerning the game of cricket will not be disclosed to the ACB's ACU. Our coverage is vaster than what is perceived."
Featured image credits: Geo Super
