UAE players Amir Hayat and Ashfaq Ahmed suspended for breaching ICC anti-corruption code
The two cricketers have been charged with five counts of breaching the code
ESPNcricinfo staff
13-Sep-2020
Amir Hayat and Ashfaq Ahmed have 14 days to respond to the charges • Getty Images
UAE players Amir Hayat, the 38-year-old medium pacer, and Ashfaq Ahmed, the 35-year-old batsman, have been charged with five counts of breaching the game's anti-corruption rules and provisionally suspended with immediate effect, an ICC statement on Sunday said. The alleged offences are related to the 2019 men's T20 World Cup qualifier, played in October.
The charges include attempting to fix or improperly influence the result of an international match and failing to disclose to the ICC anti-corruption unit details of corrupt approaches.
Hayat, who has turned out for UAE in nine ODIs and four T20Is, and Ahmed, capped 28 times by UAE in white-ball cricket, have been charged with the following breaches:
Ahmed had earlier been suspended by the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB), but "no formal charges had been laid so far" according to the statement at the time. As such, that penalty was imposed by the ECB, while the latest sanctions are courtesy the ICC.
Not long before Ahmed had been suspended, the ICC had provisionally suspended UAE captain Mohammad Naveed and senior batsman Shaiman Anwar, charging the two players with attempts to "fix" or "improperly influence" matches in the same qualifiers. Allrounder Qadeer Ahmed was also issued the same penalty for allegedly disclosing inside information to people who were betting on the game.
Hayat and Ahmed have 14 days from September 13 to respond to the charges.