The International Cricket Council has released sensational WhastApp messages that Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan exchanged with a bookie, identified as Deepak Aggarwal on multiple occasions.
In its judgment, the world governing body of cricket wrote, “In January 2018, he was selected as part of the Bangladesh team participating in a TriSeries between Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. During this series, he and Mr Aggarwal engaged in further WhatsApp conversations.”
On 19 January 2018, Shakib received a WhatsApp message from Aggarwal congratulating him for being named man of the match in that day’s game. Aggarwal followed this message with another message asking ‘do we work in this or I wait till the IPL?’ The reference to ‘work’ in this message was a reference to him providing Inside Information to Aggarwal.
Shakib did not report this contact from Aggarwal to the ACU or any other anti-corruption authority.
On 23 January 2018, he received another WhatsApp message from Aggarwal in which the bookie made another approach to him asking the Bangladeshi captain to provide him with inside information, saying ‘Bro anything in this series?’
Shakib confirmed that this message related to Aggarwal’s request to him to provide the latter with ‘inside information’ in relation to the ongoing Tri-Series. He did not report this request for ‘inside information’ from Aggarwal to the Anti-Corruption Unit or any other anti-corruption authority.
On 26 April 2018, Shakib played for the Sunrisers Hyderabad team in its IPL match against Kings XI Punjab. He received anohter WhatsApp message from Aggarwal that day asking him whether a particular player was going to be playing in the game that day, i.e. again asking for ‘inside information.’
Aggarwal continued this conversation with Shakib by talking about bitcoins, dollar accounts and asked him for his dollar account details. During this conversation, he told Aggarwal that he wanted to meet him ‘first.’
These messages on 26 April 2018 included a number of deleted messages. He confirmed that these deleted messages contained requests from Aggarwal for ‘inside information.’ He confirmed that he had concerns over Aggarwal, feeling he was a bit ‘dodgy, and that, following their conversations, he had the feeling that the latter was a bookie.
He did not report any of the contact and approaches received from Aggarwal on 26 April 2018 to the ACU or any other anti-corruption authority.
The world governing body for cricket, International Cricket Council (ICC) on Tuesday banned Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan from all forms of cricket for two years. One year of the banned two years will be suspended. The world cricket body issued its verdict after Shakib pleaded guilty on three charges of breaching the ICC Anti-Corruption Code.
