DUBAI: The head of Inter­national Cricket Council’s (ICC) anti-corruption unit Alex Marshall on Tuesday said the unit has initiated investigations against Pakistan batsman Umar Akmal.

During an interview earlier, this year, the batsman had said that he was offered $200,000 by fixers to leave two deliveries in one of the matches. “I was once offered $200,000 for leaving two deliveries. I was also offered to skip matches against India,” he said in the interview.

The batsman further infor­med that he was approached during ICC World Cup, including the 2015 edition played in Australia and New Zealand.

However, Akmal did not mention if he had reported the incident to the anti-corruption unit or not.

According to ICC anti-corruption code 2.4.4 and 2.4.5, players are bound to report all the corrupt approaches made to them during an event and failure of doing so carry a minimum punishment of five years.

Earlier in July, the ICC had interviewed Akmal’s regarding the allegations.

The out-of-favour batsman was sent back from last year’s Champions Trophy after being declared unfit and was also dropped from the Lahore Qalandars side after failing to perform with the bat.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2018