The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Friday announced life bans on Rajasthan Royals players Shantakumaran Sreesanth and Ankeet Chawan from a spot-fixing case during this year’s Indian Premier League.
Former player Amit Singh was banned for five years for spot-fixing while Royals’ pace bowler Siddharth Trivedi was outed for one year for failing to report an approach by bookmakers.
Harmeet Singh was let off due to lack of evidence after it was reported that he too had been approached by illegal bookmakers to perform badly.
No decision was made on Ajit Chandila because he was in jail until this week and could not be met by the BCCI’s anti-corruption chief Ravi Sawani.
“Obviously, the anti-corruption education given to the players had no impact on the conduct. Therefore, the players deserve no leniency whatsoever,” Sawani said.
The four players found guilty of spot-fixing are among 39 people who have also been charged separately by Delhi Police in the corruption scandal that rocked this year’s IPL.
While all four players belong to the Rajasthan Royals franchise, the 30-year-old Sreesanth is the only one to have played for India. The fast bowler played Test cricket and was part of the teams that won the World Twenty20 in 2007 and the World Cup in 2011.
The players were arrested in May along with scores of bookies as part of a police investigation into the spot-fixing scandal, which had caused outrage among fans in the cricket-mad nation.
BCCI chief Narayanaswami Srinivasan voluntarily stepped aside from the post in June after his son-in-law was arrested, and later released on bail, over alleged links to illegal bookmakers.
Son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan is one of the owners of IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings, a team bought by Srinivasan’s India Cements conglomerate when the popular T20 league was launched in 2008.