Nepal T20 League under scrutiny for match-fixing claims

Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs has ordered a police investigation into the cricket tournament.

Nepal.- More than seven players have submitted reports to the International Cricket Council (ICC) after being approached with offers to fix matches in the Nepal T20 League. The league is the first franchise cricket tournament organised by the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN).

The Ministry of Home Affairs has ordered the Nepal Police Headquarters to start an investigation. A police spokesperson said the force is monitoring the tournament for any discrepancies.

Gyanendra Malla, the former captain of Nepal’s national team and current captain of the Kathmandu Knights said that one of his teammates received a match-fixing offer. 

He said: “We have already reported it to the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU). But getting a proposal and accepting it are two different things. It is not necessary that everyone will accept a match-fixing proposal… We have reported it to the ACU and are monitoring it.

ICC’s ACU reported that seven players submitted reports and that there was also evidence of foreign players arranging match-fixing. The tournament’s official commentator, Sachin Timalsena, revealed in a Facebook post that he had detected suspicious activities while working as a commentator and watching the games. He said that he was quitting cricket commentary.

“Nepal T20 is a Nepali version of the Indian Premier League and I have been associated with it for the past 10 days,” Timalsena said in a video uploaded on the social network. “I saw many surprising and unnatural incidents on the pitch and cricket being used for wrong motives. I saw some low-profile overseas players being assigned as captains instead of the big guns.

“Also, the incident of dropping in-form players like Sikandar Raza, who has been performing well, and bringing in a non-bowler to deliberately give away runs, were some strange things. Seeing such unnatural incidents, I also reported them to ACU officer Bir Singh.”