Two Australian batsmen have been accused of fixing a match against India last year.
The unnamed cricketers were allegedly paid-off to fix a period of play during the Ranchi Test match by the same match-fixers who claim to have corrupted the groundsman who prepared the pitch for a match Australia lost to Sri Lanka in 2016.
Three unnamed England players have also been thrown into the accusations during a Test match against India in 2017, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Two Australian batsmen have been accused of being paid-off to fix a period of play by the same match-fixers who claimed to have corrupted the groundsman who prepared the pitch for a match Australia lost to Sri Lanka in 2016 (pictured)
Cricket Australia have condemned the allegations from the Ranchi Test match as containing no ‘credible evidence’ to implicate Australian cricketers, but said they will co-operate fully with the International Cricket Council anti-corruption unit investigation.
An investigation into corruption allegations in the sport were made in a documentary aired by news organisation Al Jazeera on Sunday.
The documentary secretly filmed the criminals and prompted them into talking about their ability to fix cricket games.
The footage also contains recordings from the Ranchi ground of one of the criminals insisting the run rate would stagnate and ‘it will be a low score in the last over’ of the session.
The spot-fixers allegedly bribed the groundsman at Galle to doctor the pitch used for the 2016 second test between hosts Sri Lanka and Australia.
The spot-fixers allegedly bribed the groundsman at Galle to doctor the pitch used for the 2016 second test between hosts Sri Lanka and Australia (Pictured: Sri Lankan cricket team)
The interview footage does not verify the time of the recording with a time stamp and batsmen typically bat cautiously in the final over of a session.
There is no way the match fixers could have known which Australian players were going to be at the crease at that exact period of the match, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The period of play referred to is not revealed and the names of Australian players are bleeped out.
‘The ICC … will take the contents of the programme and any allegations it may make very seriously,’ the governing body said in a statement on its website.
The same match-fixers claimed to have corrupted the groundsman who prepared the pitch (pictured) for a match Australia lost to Sri Lanka in 2016
Cricket Australia said Al Jazeera refused to provide them a copy of the documentary in advance but conceded their ‘longstanding position on these matters is that credible claims will be treated very seriously and fully investigated,’ CEO James Sutherland said.
‘We urge Al Jazeera to provide all unedited materials and any other evidence to the ICC Investigation team, so, if appropriate, a full and thorough investigation can be conducted.’
Al Jazeera said it will hand over the material and confirmed it had failed to contact players.
Cricket Australia said they contacted players and their managers in order to brief them about the documentary.