Just ahead of the ICC World T20 2016, the International Cricket Council's (ICC) Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has prevented certain individuals from an international team from manipulating upcoming matches.
The ACU confirmed they have started a probe against the individuals. The ACU did not disclose the name of the team, but they are happy to have prevented a possible scandal ahead of the ICC World T20 2016. which begins from Tuesday.
"It will be very difficult for me to talk about specific details about an ongoing case, but quite recently we have a reason to believe that members of a particular team have intentions to manipulate events in forthcoming matches," ICC ACU chief Sir Ronnie Flanagan was quoted as saying by ESPN Cricinfo.
"This was an international team but I am not going to go into any details because it is still under our investigation.
"Certain individuals, we believed, had intention to manipulate events to facilitate betting on those events. Just like police have to make these operational decisions - in terms of how long or how far you allow something to develop or when do you intervene - we decided in this particular case we would intervene immediately.
"We would focus on individuals who we suspected, but we would remind the entire squad of all their responsibilities. am certain that our action in that particular case did indeed avert the intention of just one or two individuals, and we have taken action in relation to those individuals and we will be taking further action."
Flanagan has assured the players and officials can reach out to the complaint receiving body anytime during or after the ICC World T20. A dedicated hotline number has been allotted for this. He also requested the players to have faith in the ACU, after the organisation came under criticism following the Chris Cairns perjury trial.
"It's important we keep going back to players to keep them updated on what is happening so that they don't come by this view 'I reported this and it seems to have gone into a black hole,' Flanagan added.
"In these days running up to the T20 World Cup, my anti-corruption managers have been with players and will speak to every squad - men and women - and those are the opportunities when players ask my anti-corruption managers questions.
"In the last 12 months we have received 450 [intelligence] reports. My assurance is something will be done on all these reports. They are never ignored."
Flanagan also went on to praise BCCI's proposed tie-up with Maharashtra State Police.
"In the order of priority our activity is to try and prevent corruption, to disrupt the activities of those who seek to engage in corruption and if we have to, investigate corruption and prosecute instances of corruption," Flanagan said.
"This (the BCCI's tie-up) is a positive development and something we encourage our domestic units to do. If you go back to last year's World Cup, we [the ICC] had memorandum of understanding drawn up with both the Australian federal police and the New Zealand federal police.
"Working in partnership, we can make cricket a cleaner game, we can keep these corruptors at bay and prevent their criminal intent."
