India players aware of corrupt approaches during lockdown, says BCCI's ACU Chief

The ICC’s Anti Corruption Unit’s (ACU) head Alex Marshall recently expressed concerns over the increase of corrupt approaches even if there is no cricketing action. He pointed out that corrupters approach the players through social media platforms as most of them are using it to interact with the fans amid lockdown in most of the countries due to outbreak of the Coronavirus.

At the moment, all the cricketing series stand either cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19 and there is no idea when the normalcy will return. Rather there is a fear that the bookies or fixers would target the players who would suffer more pay cuts during this lockdown period. However, the BCCI’s ACU Chief Ajit Singh has cleared that the Indian players are aware of the online corrupt approaches and are quick to report any such thing.

“We have made our players aware about the way people approach you and modus operandi through social media. We have told them ‘look this is how they (potential fixers and bookies) would approach you,” he was quoted as saying by the Times of India. Ajit Singh also informed the way the fixers approach the players. He mentioned they will first be like a fan and then somehow set up a meeting with a player through his close ones.

“(They will) try and behave like a fan and then try to meet you through someone who may be your acquaintance. Somehow these elements try and touch base with players. Most of them (India players), whenever it happens, they do report to us that I have got a contact,” he added.

How is BCCI’s ACU team tracking online approaches?

Moreover, the BCCI’s ACU team is also keeping track of all the online events happening during the lockdown. Most of the India players are busy conducting Q&A session on Twitter and are also going live on Instagram with their teammates and several other people. Ajit Singh also added that any suspicion activity goes into their database and they will investigate the matter once the lockdown is over.

“Whatever can be tracked online, we do that. But obviously the physical verification part of going out and checking locations is out of question in times of a lockdown. But if something comes to our notice, it automatically goes into our database and once lockdown is over, we will verify those if the need arises,” he further said.