Dhaka Gladiators skipper Mashrafee bin Murtaza and coach Ian Pont were summoned by the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s Anti Corruption Tribunal to give their accounts of the Bangladesh Premier League match-fixing scandal, officials said on Wednesday. Mashrafee appeared before the tribunal on Wednesday, while Pont is expected to to give his testimony today in the in the hearing before the three-member tribunal, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Khademul Islam Chowdhury.
Mashrafee, who led the Gladiators to the title in successive seasons, was replaced by Mohammad Ashraful in their match against the Chittagong Kings, a match that is at the centre of the controversy.
The sudden decision by Gladiators management to drop Mashrafee was met with surprise and suspicion at the outset, as reflected in media reports after the match, which the Gladiators lost by 54 runs.
‘Yes, I was present in front of the tribunal as they called me,’ Mashrafee told New Age.
Though Pont was not charged by the ICC Anti Corruption and Security Unit, he was implicated by the Gladiators’ bowling coach Mohammad Rafique, one of the nine individuals who were charged.
The Gladiators’ lawyer, Nawroz Chowdhury, also recently claimed that Pont was deliberately spared from charges despite being involved in the decision-making process.
‘The documents that were made available to us, they show coach Ian Pont was aware of everything and he had accepted $6,000 for it,’ Chowdhury said after the first day’s formal hearing on January 19.
-With New Age input
