Asia Cup 2018: ICC investigated 5 international skippers and 3 other cricketers for spot-fixing

Shocking but true. Star cricketers are under the scanner as the International Cricket Council looks to crackdown on spot-fixing and bookies wrecking havoc with the game. 

Sample this: As per a presentation by the ICC Anti-corruption unit, there has been 8 players as suspects, including 5 skippers of international teams. Although Alex Marshall, GM ICC ACSU refused to elaborate, it is understood that it involves primarily full member countries. To make matters worse, a chunk of the players also involved former international cricketers.

Indian bookies have been troubling ICC the most, as the game's corrupters have been involving players from the fringe of the team members to act as an intermediary. 

The ICC has conducted 32 investigations in the last one year, where 5 involve administrators as well and one of ICC’s biggest success has been that 23 approaches have been reported by the players. 

"Getting through a team's skipper is the most important and they are the favourites for all bookies because they can help influence all sorts of things, field settings, bowling changes and of course the playing XI. At this point, we are sure that there is no match-fixing in cricket anymore but the corrupters are resorting to spot-fixing and disrupting sessions in the game," says Marshall. 

New T20 leagues - Masters Cricket League, which saw some of the greats of the game, also being in the dock along with other leagues like Asian Premier League, Zimbabwean League, Arabian League - sprouting worldwide have made matters difficult. 

"T20 leagues provide ideal opportunities to the corrupters along with rising popularity of under 19 cricket and women's cricket. But still its the explosion of T20 cricket that is the worrying factor and make us work hard," says Marshall.