BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) has alerted the BCCI’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) of bookies attempting to fix matches by approaching players in the ongoing Karnataka Premier League (KPL) T20 competition in the state, Hindustan Times reports.
The KSCA has the players to thank as they have already reported these approaches to the ACU officials.
The development comes two days after Betfair, the popular online betting platform based in UK, had opted to withdraw any transactions relating to the rest of the competition since unusual betting patterns were detected for matches such as those between Hubli Tigers and Bijapur Bulls on 16 August.
The global betting syndicate had pooled in an amount of money that drastically changed the odds from 1.9 to 1.2 for Hubli’s victory right after the toss itself and the result went in the team’s favour eventually.
“Yes, there have been people from Rajasthan who have approached players in the league, but then the players have reported all such activities to the ACU officials,” Sudhakar Rao, the KSCA secretary, told HT.
“The Anti-Corruption Unit is now looking into the reports and we are awaiting their version before taking any action.”
“We did not see anything untoward from a team’s standpoint and from a cricketing standpoint,” Rahul Kargal, the Bijapur manager said.
“Everything is under wraps as far as the franchise is concerned and we control everything which happens with the team and all the strategies which are in place.
“Just so you know, there is one anti-corruption unit representative who has been embedded with each franchise. Now, he monitors the movement in each team, players and managers included at all times. He stays in the hotel, travels with the team for any official or unofficial arrangement. He even comes to the practice session and all the respective franchise managers make him aware of all the movements and developments at all times.”
