ICC grills Mansoor Akhtar over alleged spot-fixing charges

ICC ACU officer Steve Richardson made an unexpected appearance at the National Stadium in Karachi on Friday to question the former Pakistan cricketer.

Mansoor, who has played 19 Tests and 41 ODIs for Pakistan, has been accused by Umar Akmal.

 

An officer of International Cricket Council’s Anti-Corruption Unit grilled former Pakistan Test batsman Mansoor Akhtar for more than an hour here on Friday over his reported approach to Umar Akmal to spot-fix a match in the Global T20 League in Canada.

The Pakistan batsman had reported the matter to the ICC and the organisers.

ICC ACU officer Steve Richardson made an unexpected appearance at the National Stadium on Friday where Mansoor was called for questioning.

Mansoor, who played 19 Tests and 41 ODIs for Pakistan, was part of the management in one of the franchises. He has denied the accusations. But the 62-year-old had gone underground after Umar’s accusations were reported in the media.

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Though he is now based in the United States, speculation was rife that he had returned to Karachi.

Richardson is expected to meet Umar in Lahore.

“We don’t know what took place in the meeting but the ICC officer had called Mansoor to the stadium and he spent over an hour with him,” a source in the PCB said.

In recent years, Pakistan players been involved in spot-fixing scandals with Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Aamir and Salman Butt serving five-year bans for corruption from 2010 to 2015 while Test leg-spinner Danish Kaneria has also been banned for life by the ECB for his role in spot-fixing in English county cricket.

Last month, Pakistan batsman Sharjeel Khan completed a five-year ban for spot-fixing in the Pakistan Super League in 2017. Half of his ban period was suspended by a Anti-Corruption Tribunal of the PCB.

Umar has been questioned by the PCB and ICC ACU officers in the past as well after making claims that he was asked to under-perform in Cricket World Cup 2015 and in a super sixes game in Hong Kong.