Bowler Sreesanth banned from cricket for life for match-fixing
The disciplinary committee, comprising N. Srinivasan – BCCI’s former president, Arun Jaitley – BBCI’s vice president and Niranjan Shah – the board secretary arrived at the conclusion after investigating the allegations of match fixing against certain players including Sreesanth, Amit Singh, Ankeet Chavan, Harmeet Singh and Siddarth Trivedi.
30-year-old Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, from Kerala, made his debut in 2002-03 in the domestic season of Ranji Trophy. Since then he moved on to play several ODIs, Test series, World Cup, World Twenty20 Championship and Indian Premier League.
In April 2006, he was named Man of the Match for claiming 10 wickets against England in an ODI series.
In May 2013, Sreesanth, along with his other two Rajasthan Royal (IPL franchise) players – Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila -- was arrested on charges of spot-fixing. Sreesanth was charged with taking money to allow a pre-agreed number of runs three matches in IPL Season 6 or IPL 2013.
The BCCI disciplinary committee members, on Friday, September 13, 2013 said that “Sreesanth is banned for life from playing any representative Cricket, or in any way being associated with the activities of the BCCI or its affiliates.”
The regulator also banned Ankeet Chavan for life from cricket on the same terms.
Among charges against other players, the BCCI banned Amit Singh for five years from playing any cricket and Siddarth Trivedi for a period of one year. It dropped the case against Harmeet Singh for lack of evidence against him.
The Disciplinary Committee has passed the banning order after “considering the evidence on record and hearing each of the players in person,” the members said.
On his official Twitter page, Sreesanth said to his 690,000+ followers: "Please have faith in me. I am sure I will prove my innocence soon. I will get through this."
The players were in custody since May 2013 and have been suspended by their IPL team, but had denied wrongdoing.
In June this year, BCCI suspended British Indian Raj Kundra, owner of IPL team Rajasthan Royals and husband of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, after receiving complaints of alleged betting in IPL.
