PARIS: Captain Mohammed Naveed is one of the three United Arab Emirates cricketers who have been charged with corruption, the Inter­national Cricket Council (ICC) announced on Wednesday.

Batsman Shaiman Anwar and right-arm pace bowler Qadeer Ahmed have also been charged by the ICC, the three players facing a total of 12 counts of breaching the governing body’s anti-corruption rules.

All three have been provisionally suspended with immediate effect.

A fourth individual, Mehardeep Chhayakar, was also charged for refusing to cooperate with the ICC.

“Three UAE players and a participant in cricket from Ajman have been charged with 13 counts of breaching cricket’s anti-corruption rules and the players have been provisionally suspended with immediate effect,” the ICC said in a statement.

The UAE selectors offered no explanation earlier this week when Naveed was left out of the squad for the T20 World Cup qualifiers, replaced as skipper by spinner Ahmed Raza.

Naveed, a 32-year-old fast bowler who has played 39 ODIs and 31 T20s, has been charged on four counts revolving around match-fixing at the T20 qualifiers, which begin on Friday in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and the T10 League which takes place in Abu Dhabi in November.

Qadeer has been charged with six breaches of the ICC’s Code relating principally to the series against Zimbabwe in April and the Netherlands in August as well as passing insider information to Chhayakar in the knowledge that “the information might be used for betting purposes”.

Shaiman faces two charges connected with fixing results in the forthcoming T20 qualifiers.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2019