The Abu Dhabi T10 league caught the attention last night (November 22) for a dubious no-ball. It has a chequered history, including a corruption scandal which took place three years ago.
UAE pace bowler Hazrat Bilal overstepped the crease in his delivery stride on Friday, in action for Samp Army against New York Strikers. But this was no ordinary no-ball. Bilal's front foot landed over two feet ahead of the popping crease, raising questions about how he could have made such an error by mistake.
The no-ball was not dissimilar to Mohammad Amir's overstep at Lord's in 2010, an incident which saw him banned for spot-fixing soon after, along with teammates Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt.
The Abu Dhabi T10 is one of the newer franchise leagues, set up in 2017 – and it has fallen afoul of integrity standards once before.
September 2023: Eight individuals charged under Anti-Corruption Code
Last year, the ICC, as the Emirates Cricket Board's Designated Anti-Corruption Official, charged eight individuals for breaches of the tournament's Anti-Corruption Code, pertaining to attempts to corrupt matches during the 2021 edition of the Abu Dhabu T10. This included three players, three coaches, two team owners and one team manager.
Former first-class cricketer Ashar Zaidi, and team co-owners Parag Sanghvi and Krishan Kumar Choudhary – all part of the Pune Devils team which finished rock-bottom in 2021 – were handed bans after they admitted to breaching the Anti-Corruption Code.
ICMYI Australia were shot out for 104 on day two at Perth, making it their second-lowest Test score at home against India.
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) November 23, 2024
It is also their lowest first innings total against the country.
READ: https://t.co/K7VXCKDXLe pic.twitter.com/OuzPGsR040
Zaidi was banned for five years, and Sanghvi and Choudhary for one year each, all backdated to September 19, 2023. Zaidi admitted to the charge of facilitating corruption, Sanghvi to placing bets on matches and Choudhary for failing to cooperate with the investigation.
One of the players, former Bangladesh international Nasir Hossain, was banned from all cricket in early 2024, for a period of two years with six months of those suspended. He is free to resume playing international cricket from April 7, 2025.
UK-based club cricketer Rizwan Javed, meanwhile, received a much harsher sentence of a 17 and a half year ban – a decision arrived at after he failed to respond to the charges, one of which was "being party to an attempt to fix, contrive or influence improperly matches or aspects of matches in the Abu Dhabi T10 2021 (on three separate occasions)".
The growing number of T20 franchise leagues across the world, has caused headaches for the ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit as well. There is no central governing authority for these leagues, and former investigations coordinator for the ICC, Steve Richardson, opened up in an interview this year to say that the ICC has had concerns over various franchises and sometimes leagues as a whole.
Image credit: TTenSports
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