Mehar Chhayakar, a United Arab Emirates cricketer, has been banned for 14 years by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The ICC tribunal banned the cricketer from all forms of cricket in 2019 for violating the ICC and Cricket Canada codes.
- Who is Mehar Chhayakar? When was he involved in match-fixing?
Mehar Chhayakar is a domestic cricketer from UAE who has played in the top league as a wicket-keeper batsman. He was found guilty of attempting to fix matches during the UAE vs Zimbabwe ODI series in 2019 and the Global T20 franchise tournament in Canada in the same year.
Mehar's companions confessed to the crime, but he denied the allegations. Former UAE players Qadir Khan and Ghulam Shabbir, who were Chhayakar's accomplices in this whole fixing case, accepted the ban imposed on themselves, but the main accused Mehar claimed to be innocent
- Mehar Chhayakar was found guilty of seven breaches
"Mehar Chhayakar has been banned from all cricket for 14 years after an ICC Anti-Corruption Tribunal found him guilty of seven breaches of the ICC and Cricket Canada Anti-Corruption Codes," the ICC said in a statement on Wednesday.
- The Ajman Allstars tournament
Chhayakar first came to the attention as a result of the 2018 Ajman Allstars tournament which the (Anti-Corruption Unit) ACU investigated and determined was a corrupt tournament. However, as the 2018 AA tournament did not constitute sanctioned or official cricket it did not fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC or any other National Cricket Federation and therefore no action could be taken back then.
ICC General Manager, Integrity Unit, Alex Marshall said, “We first encountered Mehar Chhayakar through his involvement in organising a corrupt cricket tournament in Ajman, in 2018. The charges for which he has now received a lengthy ban are further examples of his continuing efforts to corrupt and damage our sport. We will be relentless in pursuing and disrupting the people who try to corrupt cricket. With a ban of 14 years, the Tribunal has sent a clear message to anyone intending to corrupt our game."
