The BCCI has extended its crackdown on match-fixing to regional leagues after the owner of a team was arrested for many illegal bets with a bookmaker based in Dubai earlier this week.
According to police reports, Ashfaq Ali Thara, owner of a team in the Karnataka Premier League, which is a T20I state level competition, was arrested on Tuesday in Bangalore. Thara, who also owns a team in the Dubai T20 League, is potentially facing charges for placing bets with a Dubai bookie. He is also under investigation for his role in potential fixing cricket matches.
The news comes barely a week after the BCCI’s anti-corruption unit launched an inquiry into illegal approaches by suspected match fixes in this year’s Tamil Nadu Premier League. It also comes hot on the heels of news that two men made illicit approaches to a member of the Indian One Day team in February. Two men have been arrested in relation to those charges.
Match-fixing has plagued the sport of cricket in recent years, fuelled by the increase in gambling. Whilst gambling in India, except on horse racing or on lotteries, is illegal, thousands of bets are placed every day on all manner of sports with illegal; bookmakers, on all aspects of the sport – from the result to the timing of the next wicket, or even the number of wides which will be bowled.
There are almost no controls to check online gambling, and, with the rewards on offer potentially very lucrative to players who collaborate in match-fixing, the authorities need to be increasingly vigilant.
In 2013, the IPL (the Indian Premier League), the world’s richest and most glamorous national league, was engulfed in scandal when three cricketers, Sreesanth Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan, all of whom played for the Rajasthan Royals, were arrested by Delhi Police on charges of alleged spot-fixing. Meanwhile, in a separate incident, one player and the team principal of the Chennai Super Kings were arrested for having links with bookies, and alleged betting offences.
Chandila and Sreesanth were banned for like from all forms of cricket by the BCCI, although Sreesanth’s ban was lifted by the Indian Supreme Court earlier this year.
The problem is not restricted to India, either. Many T20 leagues – including the Pakistan Super League, Bangladesh Premier League and Dubai league — have had their own match fixing scandals which led to players receiving bans.
