Just a day after ICC Anti-Corruption Unit Chairman Sir Ronnie Flanagan spoke to the media about an international team who came under the ACU scanner, David Richardson, who is is chief executive of the cricket's governing body, as good as gave away the name of that team.
While Richardson did not reveal the name of the international side, he stated that the team have a player, who was suspended earlier this year for failing to report an illegal approach.
Hong Kong national cricket team do have a player named Irfan Ahmed, who was suspended by ICC in January for a similar issue.
"In recent times you would have read in the media that a particular player was suspended from his country and the investigations relate to the same team. Flanagan said one of the teams was under investigation. We need to take that in perspective," Richardson was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.
"We shouldn't speculate that it involves any match-fixing or spot-fixing with any particular players or particular team. An investigation will resolve it."
Meanwhile, Hong Kong, who will play their first match of the ICC World T20 2016 qualifier against Zimbabwe, Tuesday, are seeking clarity over Richardson's comments.
"The reporting seems to be a bit vague and at this stage we are not sure about what's going on. But it seems to be referring to Irfan Ahmed who was provisionally suspended under the ACSU code. I can only guess that that's the case the latest comments refer to," a spokesperson of the Hong Kong national cricket team said.
"We have heard that he (Richardson) had made this comment, but it wasn't at the press conference but somewhere outside. So we are waiting to find out whether it's actually confirmed."
"You would know the process involved to know what an awkward position this is. Normally, we would say no comment but we don't even know what we are (not) commenting on."
The spokesperson also stated this news can affect their national side's ICC World T20 qualifying campaign. Thus, they are awaiting further clarification from the ACU of ICC.
"We don't want this distracting our team, we don't want this affecting our chances and we are here to perform strongly. We have got every intention to progress to the next round," the spokesperson added.
"We will certainly be as open as we possibly can be. We will be pushing for a quick resolution on this matter. This is not at all what we want to be associated with."
Richardson also expressed his concerns over the match-fixers, who are now targeting players of Associate nations.
"We are now finding that the corruptors are now focused on Associate members, womens teams, etc. So we have got to make sure the players from all the teams are very well educated, understand their responsibilities and would not get involved," Richardson said.
"Unfortunately, this is the world we are living. There are corrupt people all over the world, trying their best to get hold of players."
