BCCI's ACU Chief Ajit Singh Lauds Indian Players Over Dealing Well With Corruption

While cricket is a gentlemen’s game, corruption has maintained a steady relationship with it. Time and again, one has seen cricketers being exposed for talking to bookies or carrying out any corrupt activities in the game. Not very long again, Bangladesh ace was slapped with a lengthy ban for corruption.

Pakistan’s controversial batsman Umar Akmal is also in danger of being punished  after being charged by the PCB for violation of the anti-corruption code. He had failed to report to the relevant authority approaches by individuals for “corrupt conduct.”

Fortunately, the Indian cricket is largely free from these corrupt practices. And perhaps that is why BCCI’s head of Anti Corruption Unit (ACU) Ajit Singh is not too worried over the threat of online corrupt approaches. He said that the Indian players are well aware of the modus operandi of fixers and are quick to report anything suspect.

The ICC ACU head Alex Marshall, in an interview to ‘The Guardian’, said that prolonged lockdown and players using various social media platforms could lead to corrupt approaches being made and people need to tread carefully. But Ajit Singh is not at all worried as he said BCCI ACU is in control.

“…we have made our players aware about the way people approach you and modus operandi through social media. We have told them ‘look this is how they (potential fixers and bookies) would approach you’,” the veteran IPS officer told PTI.

“(They will) try and behave like a fan and then try to meet you through someone who may be your acquaintance.

“Somehow these elements try and touch base with players. Most of them (India players), whenever it happens, they do report to us that I have got a contact,” he added.

At a time when no action is going around at the moment, cricketers are highly active on social media. A number of big names like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and others recently did live sessions on Instagram. Some players also carried out Q and A sessions on Twitter. When asked whether BCCI’s ACU is team tracking the online content, Ajit Singh said:

“Whatever can be tracked online, we do that. But obviously the physical verification part of going out and checking locations is out of question in times of a lockdown.

“But if something comes to our notice, it automatically goes into our database and once lockdown is over, we will verify those if the need arises,” he added.

He further said that, in his two year stint, all current India players have been honest and upright, very aware about their responsibilities. Ajit Singh also said that both tracking social media and physical verification of corrupt approaches has its own set of challenges.

“We are not adversaries of players. The players and ACU are one team. It’s the people who are trying to corrupt the games, they are the ones we need to track down.”

“Those who were trying to corrupt the players with physical presence and those using fake IDs on social media handles, converge at some point.

“Either it’s the same person with a fake ID who tries to approach the player or uses someone on his behalf. So there is a pattern of convergence. One has to follow both the lines,” he added.

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