Bangladesh off-spinner Shohely Akhter is the first female cricketer to be slapped with a ban for corruption. She was found involved in a match-fixing incident during the 2023 Women’s T20 World held in South Africa. The 36-year-old was not a part of the squad. Shohely has agreed violation of five provisions, leading to a five-year ban starting February 10, 2025.
The provisions breached by Shohely are Articles 2.1.1, 2.1.3, 2.1.4, 2.4.4 and 2.4.7 of the Code.
Considering the length of the ban, a spokesperson from the International Cricket Council (ICC) stated, “including giving Ms Akther credit for agreeing an outcome that avoids the need for a hearing and so saves considerable time and money for use elsewhere in the fight against corruption, and has considered relevant precedents. The ICC therefore considers that a period of ineligibility of five (5) years is reasonable and proportionate. Ms Akhter has agreed to this sanction. As such, a period of ineligibility of five (5) years is imposed.”
None of the two parties, Shohely or ICC have a right to appeal against the decision.
Shohely’s last appearance in the Bangladesh outfit was in October 2022.
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The investigating agent from ICC’s Anti-Corruption Code (ACU) focused on the chats exchanged between Shohely Akhter and another player (who was part of the squad) via Facebook Messenger dated February 14, 2023. The date coincides with the T20 World Cup match between Bangladesh and Australia. Shohely offered the cricketer around USD 16,400 to get stumped in the match.
The said player proceeded to report Shohely to the ACU immediately by sharing all voice notes sent by Shohely. However, Shohely had deleted it from her devices.
During an interview of the enquiry, Shohely confirmed sending the voice notes but claimed that “she only did so in order to show her friend that members of the Bangladesh team were not involved in fixing, not because she was genuinely making a corrupt approach.”
Shohely presented the screenshots of a conversation between her and a friend about the “challenge”. She tried to prove that the conversations were exchanged before February 14, much prior to the match in question. However, the ACU confirmed with a forensic investigation that the files had been created after February 14 by “reviewing underlying metadata for the messages”.
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