Oman cricketer suspended by ICC for breaching anti-corruption rules

Oman player Yousef Abdulrahim Al Balushi was on Thursday charged with breaching cricket's anti-corruption rules and was provisionally suspended with immediate effect by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Al Balushi has been charged with four breaches of the ICC Anti-Corruption Code. Also, all the charges are related to the ICC Men's T20 World Cup Qualifiers 2019 held in the United Arab Emirates.

The following are the four breaches, according to the ICC:

Breach of 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 in the ICC World T20 Qualifiers 2019.

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

Breach of 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.

Breach of 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.

Al Balushi has been given two weeks from January 23 to respond to the charges.