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Lou Vincent handed three-year ban
Former New Zealand batsman Lou Vincent and ex-Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful have been handed lengthy bans from all forms of cricket for their roles in a Twenty20 match-fixing scandal.
A special tribunal set up to investigate claims of corruption in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) announced that Ashraful was banned for eight years and ordered him to pay a fine of one million taka ($13,800) after he admitted match-fixing.
Vincent, who is also separately charged with match fixing in England, was banned for three years for failing to report approaches to fix matches. A third former international, Sri Lanka's Kaushal Lokuarachchi, received an 18-month ban for the same offence.
Shihab Jishan Chowdhury, an owner of the league's reigning champions Dhaka Gladiators, which employed Ashraful, was banned for 10 years and fined two million taka for being party to an effort to fix a match. Shakil Kasem, one of the three-member tribunal that handed down the sentences, said the bans would be effective anywhere in the world.
"The charges against the four were brought in accordance with the ICC's (International Cricket Council) anti-corruption code," Kasem said on Wednesday. "As a result, during the ban period, they'll be barred from playing and all sorts of cricketing activities anywhere in the world."
The ban on Ashraful, 29, is backdated to May last year when the one-time prodigy tearfully admitted having helped fix matches in the tournament, which has been tainted by scandal since its inception. Ashraful, who made history in 2001 by becoming the youngest player to score a Test century at the age of just 17, went on Bangladeshi television last year to appeal for forgiveness.
He played 61 Tests, 177 one-day internationals and 23 T20 international matches. Vincent represented the Black Caps in 23 Tests and 109 one-day internationals, although he hasn't played for his country since 2007. The New Zealander, who played for the Khulna Royals in last year's BPL, is at the centre of other match-fixing allegations in India and England.
He has already confessed to fixing in several countries. In a separate case in the UK, Vincent was charged in May with offences relating both to a Sussex-Kent match and a Twenty20 match between Sussex and Lancashire. And on Wednesday, the England and Wales Cricket Board said it had banned his former Sussex teammate Naveed Arif for life after the bowler admitted to guilt over six corruption offences.
Arif, a Pakistani, had previously been charged with the offences, all relating to accusations of spot-fixing in the 40-over game between Sussex and Kent in August 2011.
