Kabul: The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) on Sunday banned wicketkeeper-batsman Shafiqullah Shafaq from all forms of cricket for a period of six years after he accepted four charges related to the breaching of the ACB Anti-Corruption Code.
The charges relate to the first edition of the Afghanistan Premier League T20 (APL T20) in 2018 and the 2019 edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).
Shafaf breached four Articles of the Anti-Corruption Code dealing with match-fixing to failing to report fixing.
Under the provisions of the Code, Shafaq chose to admit the charges levied against him and agreed to the sanctions by the ACB in lieu of an Anti-Corruption Tribunal hearing.
Addressing the matter, ACB’s Senior Anti-Corruption manager Sayed Anwar Shah Quraishi said: “This is a very serious offence where a senior national player is involved in the corruption of a high-profile domestic game in APL T20 2018. The player had also attempted but failed to get one of his teammates to engage in corruption in another high-profile game during the BPL 2019.”
“It is an alert for all those players who think their illegal activities concerning the game of cricket will not be disclosed to the ACB’s ACU. Our coverage is vaster than what is perceived,” he added.
The 30-year-old right-handed batsman played 24 ODIs for Afghanistan and scored 430 runs including two fifties. In 46 T20Is, he amassed 494 runs with the highest score of 51*.
He last featured in the T20I game against Bangladesh in September 2019.
