UAE's Mohammad Naveed, Shaiman Anwar, and Qadeer Ahmed suspended for corruption ahead of T20 Qualifiers

UAE's Mohammad Naveed, Shaiman Anwar, and Qadeer Ahmed suspended for corruption ahead of T20 Qualifiers

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The UAE has been hit by a fixing scandal with the ICC charging the national team captain Mohammad Naveed and two senior cricketers, Shaiman Anwar and Qadeer Ahmed of the country, with 13 counts of breaching its anti-corruption rules. UAE will be hosting the World T20 qualifiers beginning on Friday.

The World T20 Qualifiers, which the UAE will be hosting over the next two weeks, have been hit by a fixing scandal just days before its start. The ICC has charged the national team captain Mohammad Naveed and two senior cricketers, Shaiman Anwar and Qadeer Ahmed of the host team, UAE, with 13 counts of breaching its anti-corruption rules.

Along with them, local player Mehardeep Chhayakar has also been charged with multiple breaches of the anti-corruption code. The players have been charged with attempts to corrupt games at the World T20 qualifiers themselves or failure to cooperate with the ACU investigation.

Naveed was withdrawn from the Emirates squad without explanation on Thursday (October 10) with left-arm seamer Ahmed Raza taking over the captaincy. Top-order bat Shaiman, who is currently the UAE's highest-ranked T20I batsman, rated 20th in the world and is their leading T20I run-scorer, and seamer Qadeer have likewise withdrawn ahead of UAE's first warm-up match against Scotland on Monday.

The Emirates team management had already called up three players and their addition to the squad is understood to have been approved by the event technical committee. Seamers Junaid Siddique and Waheed Ahmed and batsman Darius D'Silva were called up as cover for the trio in their warm-up matches.

Waheed impressed in the warm-up against the Scots and Papua New Guinea, picking up a total of six wickets. Nonetheless, the suspension will come as a huge blow to the nation, who lose their strike bowler and skipper in Naveed and their most experienced batsman in Anwar, and to the status of the game in the Emirates, which had hoped to shake off a reputation as a nexus of corruption in the game.

This is not the first time that the evil of match-fixing has made headlines in association with Emirati cricket. In Al-Jazeera's explosive documentary last year, alleged fixers claimed on camera that "we have the UAE team in our hand," claiming that they had players on their payroll who were prepared to deliberately under-perform and boasting that they were "very smart that way."

Naveed's loss will likely come as a heavy blow to the side in both competitive and moral terms. Seen as a rising star on the Associate and franchise circuit, Naveed starred with bat and ball in the UAE's first-ever victory over a Full Member (ZImbabwe) at the 50-over WC Qualifiers last year, named player of the match and briefly breaking into the top-ten of the ICC T20 bowling rankings. His story has been held up as an inspiration to young cricketers in the Emirates as he came from playing street cricket in the remote town of Khor Fakkan on the far side of the country to the cricketing centres of Dubai and Sharjah.

Both Naveed and Anwar were charged with Article 2.1.1 - "contriving, or being party to an agreement or effort to fix or contrive or otherwise influence improperly, the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of matches in the upcoming ICC World T20 Qualifiers 2019" along with Article 2.4.4 - "failing to disclose to the ACU full details of any approaches or invitations received to engage in conduct in relation to the ICC World T20 Qualifiers 2019 that would amount to corrupt conduct under the Code".

Qadeer, the 33-year-old, who has played 11 ODIs and ten T20Is for UAE stands accused of Article 2.3.2 - "disclosing inside information to Chhayakar...in circumstances where he knew or should have known that the information might be used for betting purposes" apparently in relation to the Zimbabwe v UAE series in April 2019 and UAE's tour to the Netherlands in early August. He was also charged with Article 2.4.4 - "failing to disclose to the ACU full details of any facts or matters that came to his attention that may evidence Corrupt Conduct under the Code by another Participant"; Article 2.4.6 - "failing or refusing to cooperate with an investigation being carried out by the ACU in relation to possible Corrupt Conduct under the Code"; and Article 2.4.7 -  "obstructing or delaying an ACU investigation including by concealing information that may be relevant to that investigation".

Chhayakar, meanwhile, was charged with Article 2.4.6 - "failing or refusing to cooperate with an investigation being carried out by the ACU in relation to possible Corrupt Conduct under the Code". The four players have 14 days from today (October 16) to respond to the charges.

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