KARACHI: United Arab Emi­rates based coach Irfan Ansari was suspended following allegations from Pakistan’s captain Sarfraz Ahmed that he was approached to participate in a spot fixing scheme, Cricket’s administrative body said on Thursday.

The International Cricket Cou­ncil (ICC) said Ansari was charged with three counts of breaching the body’s anti-corruption code.

“Ansari has been provisionally suspended with immediate effect and has been charged for directly soliciting, inducing, enticing or encouraging a participant to breach the code and for failure or refusal to cooperate with the anti-corruption unit’s investigation,” said an ICC release.

Ansari, who is originally from Pakistan, has coached a number of small professional clubs in the UAE for years.

The ICC said the suspension comes after Ansari failed to provide requested information to group’s anti-corruption wing on two separate occasions.

The charges centre on Sarfraz’s admission to the Pakistan Cricket Board and the ICC that Ansari had approached him about spot fixing during the one-day series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the UAE last October.

Spot-fixing involves determining the outcome of a specific part of a match rather than the overall result, and is therefore harder to detect than match-fixing.

Ansari will now have two weeks to respond to the charges.

“The ICC will not make any further comment in respect of these charges at this stage,” said the body in a statement.

The PCB took extra measures to stem spot-fixing, with all six teams in this year’s league monitored by anti-corruption officers.

Pakistan has a history of fixing cases, the latest being last year’s scandal which rocked the Pakistan Super League held in UAE.

A spot-fixing case during Pakistan’s tour of England in 2010 ended in five-year bans on then Test captain Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir.

Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria is also serving a life ban on charges of spot-fixing during a county match in England in 2009.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2018