ICC bans Oman player from all forms of cricket for seven years

The International Cricket Council has suspended Oman cricketer Yousuf Abdulrahim Al Balushi for seven years for breaching the ICC anti-corruption code. The different sanctions were slapped on Al Balushi under four articles of the code. The ban was imposed on Balushi after the player accepted all charges of misconduct.

Al Balushi was provisionally suspended on January 23 when the ICC charged him for breaching its code on four counts.

These are the articles:

Breach of Article 2.1.1 – being party to an agreement or effort to fix or contrive in any way the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of matches.

Breach of Article 2.1.4 – Attempting to solicit, induce, entice, persuade, encourage or intentionally facilitate a Participant to breach Article 2.1.

Breach of Article 2.4.4 – failing to report the approaches or invitations that you received from three different individuals to be a party to an agreement or effort to fix matches in the ICC World T20 Qualifiers 2019.

Breach of Article 2.4.7 - Obstructing or delaying an investigation carried out by the ACU in relation to possible Corrupt Conduct under the Code, including by concealing or tampering with information that may be relevant to that investigation and/or that may be evidence of or lead to the discovery of evidence of Corrupt Conduct under the Code.

Also see - Live cricket score

Alex Marshall, ICC General Manager, said, "This is a very serious offence where a player attempted but failed to get a team mate to engage in corrupt activity in high profile games and this is reflected in the severity of the sentence. "

“Without Mr Balushi's admission of guilt and full cooperation throughout our investigation, the ban could have been significantly longer. The player has also indicated that he is willing to contribute to future integrity education programmes on our behalf to help younger players learn from his mistakes."