No evidence of corruption against our cricketers: Cricket Australia

Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland has said that they have investigated the claims made by Al Jazeera in its documentary on corruption in cricket and have found no evidence that supports the involvement of any of their former or current cricketers.

Earlier this year Al Jazeera aired a documentary in which it made explosive claims regarding former cricketers trying to fix matches. It alleged that a Test between India and Australia in 2017 was under the suspicion of illegal activity. It also claimed that two unnamed Australian batsmen had been paid to bat slowly during a particular passage of play.

Al Jazeera is now all set to release a follow up sting operation to the one released in May this year.

“Cricket Australia s Integrity Unit have conducted a review of the latest claims by Al Jazeera … and from the limited information provided, our team have not identified any issues of corruption relating to current or former Australian players, Sutherland said in a statement on Tuesday.

“We have handed all material over to the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit to enable them to fully investigate and we will continue to cooperate with the ICC.”

As part of an extensive investigation by the its Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU), the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Tuesday launched an appeal to identify the whereabout of the remaining suspected match-fixer, Aneel Munawar, who in the Al-Jazeera documentary claimed he was involved in match-fixing for “six to seven years”.

In a press release today, the ICC ACU s general manager Alex Marshall said: We have identified every other person in the original documentary and have spoken to a number of them in connection with match fixing, including those who are not deemed to be participants under our Anti-Corruption Code. However the true identity of Aneel Munawar remains a mystery. He plays a significant role in the programme, yet enquiries with law enforcement and immigration sources have not identified or located him.

“As such we are appealing to the public or anyone from within the cricket family to contact us with any information that will lead us to identify and locate him. Police investigations often use such an appeal to locate people of interest and we are exercising the same approach.”