ICC bans Omani player for seven years for "very serious" corruption offence

Yousuf Abdulrahim Al Balushi was initially suspended in January for attempting to influence players to take part in corrupt activity during the 2019 T20 World Cup Qualifier

The ICC has banned Omani batsman Yousuf Abdulrahim Al Balushi from all cricketing activity for seven years after he accepted four charges of breaching the governing body’s anti-corruption code.

Balushi was suspended in January for attempting to influence players to engage in corrupt activity during the 2019 T20 World Cup Qualifier, which was held in United Arab Emirates, and he has now been formally sanctioned.

Alex Marshall, the ICC’s general manager for integrity, described Balushi’s actions as “a very serious offence”, which was “reflected in the severity of the sentence”.

He added: “Without Mr Balushi’s admission of guilt and full cooperation throughout our investigation, the ban could have been significantly longer. The player has also indicated that he is willing to contribute to future integrity education programmes on our behalf to help younger players learn from his mistakes.” 

The code of conduct breaches levelled at the 29-year-old are as follows:

Article 2.1.1 – being party to an agreement or effort to fix or contrive in any way the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of matches.

Article 2.1.4 – Attempting to solicit, induce, entice, persuade, encourage or intentionally facilitate a Participant to breach Article 2.1.

Article 2.4.4 – failing to report the approaches or invitations that you received from three different individuals to be a party to an agreement or effort to fix matches in the ICC World T20 Qualifiers 2019.

Article 2.4.7 - Obstructing or delaying an investigation carried out by the ACU in relation to possible Corrupt Conduct under the code, including by concealing or tampering with information that may be relevant to that investigation and/or that may be evidence of or lead to the discovery of evidence of Corrupt Conduct under the code.

An ICC statement, which documents the reasons for the ruling, explains that Balushi was first approached in August 2019 by an individual he had met during his time talking part in an unsanctioned Arabian Carnival League, held in Bahrain in 2017.

This person – labelled as Mr X in the judgement – asked Balushi if they could “do some work together” ahead of the qualifying tournament for the upcoming T20 World Cup.

While Balushi did not speak to the three players requested by Mr X, he did not report any of the approaches.

Prior to the Qualifier, Balushi then spoke to two more individuals – Mr Y and Mr Z, both acquaintances of Mr X. They requested assistance in getting one particular Oman player on board. The player would have to get out for less than a certain number of runs and would use a different coloured bat grip in order to confirm that he was ready for the fix.

When messaged by Balushi, however, the player immediately rejected the approach and reported it to the anti-corruption unit.

Balushi then found out that the approach had been reported, deleting incriminating messages from his phone, which ultimately helped lead to his punishment.

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