Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful pays trying to fix a ‘shortcut in life’

Eight-year ban for the former captain and most experienced player who is punished along with three others; Also while ECB acts against Naveed Arif.

Bangladesh's Mohammad Ashraful admitted to his involvement in the match-fixing scandal. Eranga Jayawardena / AP Photo

Former Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful and former New Zealand batsman Lou Vincent were handed lengthy bans from all forms of cricket yesterday for their roles in a Twenty20 match-fixing scandal.
A special tribunal set up to investigate claims of corruption in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) announced that Ashraful was banned for eight years and ordered him to pay a fine of one million taka (Dh47,500) after he admitted match-fixing.
Vincent was banned for three years for failing to report approaches to fix matches. A third former international, Sri Lanka's Kaushal Lokuarachchi, received an 18-month ban.
Shihab Jishan Chowdhury, an owner of the league's reigning champions Dhaka Gladiators, who employed Ashraful, was banned for 10 years and fined two million taka for being party to an effort to fix a match.
Shakil Kasem, one of the three-member tribunal that handed down the sentences, said the bans would be effective worldwide. "The charges against the four were brought in accordance with the ICC's (International Cricket Council) anti-corruption code," Kasem said.
The ban on Ashraful, 29, is backdated to May last year when the one-time prodigy admitted having helped fix matches in the tournament, which has been tainted by scandal since its inception.
"I have committed wrongdoing and that's why I received the punishment," Ashraful said again yesterday.
"It's natural. There's no shortcut in life."
He is yet to decide on an appeal against the sentence.
Ashraful played 61 Tests, 177 one-day internationals and 23 T20 international matches for Bangladesh. He said he would return to the game one-day after completing the ban.
"I'll be back to the field even for a day for all these people who supported me," he said.
Vincent, who played for the Khulna Royals in last year's BPL, is at the centre of other match-fixing allegations in India and England.
He has represented the Black Caps in 23 Tests and 109 one-day internationals, although he has not played for his country since 2007. Lokuarachchi, 32, played four Tests and 21 one-dayers for Sri Lanka.
The bans were announced after a copy of a report by the tribunal was leaked, including details of how the ICC's anti-corruption unit let one of the matches go ahead even though investigators knew it was fixed.
The report said Dhaka Gladiators coach Ian Pont alerted the anti-corruption unit to tell them that he had been approached by one of the team's owners, but was instructed to let the match happen regardless.
In a related development, Vincent's partner in fixing matches in England, Naveed Arif was banned for life by the English and Wales Cricket Board.
The former Sussex and Pakistan A bowler pleaded guilty to six breaches of the English Cricket Board's anti-corruption code in connection with a 40-over fixture between Sussex and Kent in August 2011.