Ethics CasesSport

Cases · Abu Dhabi T10 / Emirates Cricket Board / ICC · 2021–2025

Corruption Charges in the Abu Dhabi T10 League

In September 2023, the International Cricket Council, acting for the Emirates Cricket Board, charged eight people linked to one franchise in the 2021 Abu Dhabi T10 League over attempts to corrupt matches that investigators had disrupted. Those charged included two team co-owners, two coaches, a team manager and three players, among them Bangladesh international Nasir Hossain. Outcomes ranged from a 17-and-a-half-year ban for a club cricketer who tried repeatedly to corrupt players, to two-year bans for the co-owners and for Hossain, who failed to report a gift of a new iPhone and an approach. The case shows how short-format franchise leagues create new integrity risks, and how reporting duties, not just fixing itself, are central to anti-corruption codes.

By Tanner Simkins, editor

Timeline

  1. Attempts are made to corrupt matches in the Abu Dhabi T10 League; the ICC, acting as the anti-corruption official, disrupts them.
  2. The ICC charges eight people, including two co-owners, two coaches, a manager and three players; six are provisionally suspended.
  3. Nasir Hossain receives a two-year ban, six months suspended, after admitting three charges.
  4. A club cricketer is banned for 17.5 years after failing to respond to five charges.
  5. The team manager admits refusing to hand over his phone and accepts a two-year ban, six months suspended.
  6. The batting coach (five years) and both co-owners (two years each) are banned after admitting offences.
  7. The assistant coach is banned for six years after a contested tribunal hearing.
  8. A former Sri Lankan domestic player is banned for five years after a full tribunal hearing.

The ethical issues

  • Insider corruption: owners and coaches with power over players.
  • Duty to report: whether failing to disclose an approach should be punished like participation.
  • Gifts as grooming: how small inducements open the door to fixing.
  • Proportionality across very different levels of culpability.
  • Governance of private franchise leagues that fall outside national-team structures.

Stakeholders

StakeholderInterests & obligations
PlayersCareers, safety from corrupters and clear reporting channels.
Franchise owners and staffCommercial success and reputations.
Emirates Cricket Board and the ICCIntegrity of sanctioned events and of cricket globally.
Broadcasters and sponsorsA credible product.
Fans and bettorsGenuine contests.

The case

On September 19, 2023, the International Cricket Council (ICC) charged eight people under the Emirates Cricket Board’s (ECB) anti-corruption code for the 2021 Abu Dhabi T10 League. The charges related to attempts to corrupt matches in that tournament, attempts the ICC said had been disrupted.[1] All eight were associated with a single franchise.[2] They included two team co-owners, a batting coach, an assistant coach, a team manager and three players. One was the Bangladesh international Nasir Hossain.[1] Except for Hossain, a public figure through his international career, this case describes those charged by role.

Background

T10 is cricket’s shortest professional format: ten overs per side, with games lasting about 90 minutes. The Abu Dhabi T10 League is one of a growing number of privately owned franchise competitions that recruit players from many countries, including players at the end of international careers and players from domestic or club cricket. The ECB sanctioned the tournament and appointed the ICC as its Designated Anti-Corruption Official, so the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit investigated and brought the charges on the ECB’s behalf.[1]

The charges described several roles in an attempted fixing operation. A club cricketer and a former Sri Lankan domestic player were charged with being party to attempts to fix matches and with offering rewards to other participants to engage in corrupt conduct.[1] The batting coach was charged with being party to an attempt to fix matches, with encouraging others to breach the code, and with failing to disclose approaches.[1] The assistant coach faced fixing, non-disclosure and non-cooperation charges.[1] One co-owner was charged with betting on matches and with failing to cooperate. The other was charged with failing to report evidence of corrupt conduct by others, failing to cooperate, and obstructing or delaying the investigation.[1] The team manager was charged with failing to cooperate.[1]

The rules and governance

Cricket’s anti-corruption codes go well beyond fixing itself. Besides the core offences of fixing or offering rewards, the ECB code imposes duties to disclose approaches, to report gifts above a threshold, to report what participants learn about others’ corrupt conduct, and to cooperate with investigations.[1] Hossain’s case shows how these duties work. He was charged with failing to disclose receipt of a gift worth more than $750, a new iPhone 12; failing to disclose “full details of the approach or invitation he received to engage in Corrupt Conduct via the new iPhone 12”; and failing to cooperate with the investigation, including by not providing requested information accurately and completely.[2] He was not charged with fixing.[1]

Six of the eight were provisionally suspended when charged, and all had 14 days to respond.[1]

The outcomes

In January 2024, Hossain accepted the three charges and received a two-year ban, six months of which was suspended, making him eligible to return on April 7, 2025.[2] He had played 19 Tests, 65 one-day internationals and 31 Twenty20 internationals for Bangladesh. His last international match was in January 2018, but he had played domestic cricket as recently as May 2023.[2]

In February 2024, the club cricketer was banned from all cricket for 17½ years after being found guilty of five breaches, including three separate attempts to fix matches. He failed to respond to the charges, so under the code he was deemed to have admitted them and waived a hearing.[3] The ICC’s general manager for integrity, Alex Marshall, said he had “shown no remorse and no respect for the rules that are in place to protect our sport,” and that the sanction “should send a strong message to other corrupters trying to target cricket at any level.”[3]

In August 2024, the batting coach was banned for five years after admitting to encouraging others to breach the code and failing to disclose approaches. The two co-owners were banned for two years each after admitting two offences: for one, betting and failing to cooperate; for the other, failing to report others’ corrupt conduct and failing to cooperate. In each case the final 12 months were suspended, and the bans were backdated to September 19, 2023.[4]

Aftermath

In August 2025, after a full hearing, an ICC Anti-Corruption Tribunal found the former Sri Lankan domestic player guilty of attempting to fix matches, offering rewards and encouraging others to breach the code. He was banned for five years, backdated to his provisional suspension.[5] The ICC published redacted decisions to protect the identities of witnesses and other third parties.[3][5] Hossain returned to competitive cricket after his ban ended.[6]

The last two cases

The two outstanding cases have since been decided. The team manager’s case turned on a single demand. According to the ICC’s published decision, he refused to surrender his mobile devices when investigators asked for them, saying he was no longer involved with the team and needed his phone for business.[7] He admitted breaching the duty to cooperate in a letter agreement dated July 10, 2024, and accepted a two-year ban, with the final six months suspended on condition that he complete anti-corruption education.[7] The ICC explained why it treats refusal as serious: “As it is common for corrupters to communicate under the radar, with most of the communications taking place via mobile phone and messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram, one of the most important tools for the investigator is the power to require a Participant to produce their mobile phone.” A participant who keeps the phone “opens up the risk that they will delete information from the device.”[7]

The assistant coach contested his charges and lost after a full hearing. In its October 18, 2024 decision on the merits, the tribunal described how, in December 2020, he had contacted another coach and said “his team owner was looking for a new coach for the team, a coach who would have two or three players on his side to help the team with their results.” The other coach understood this as a reference to manipulating results “presumably for betting purposes” and refused.[8] The assistant coach said he had only been asking for advice about an approach made to him. The tribunal rejected this, finding he had been “testing to see if [Coach A] would be interested in being involved in such corrupt conduct.” It noted that he had attended an anti-corruption education session in November 2019 and found the other coach “a strong and credible witness.”[8] It was “comfortably satisfied,” the code’s standard of proof, that he had attempted to fix matches, failed to disclose an approach and failed to cooperate.[8] In its sanction decision, the tribunal treated as aggravating the potential to damage the tournament’s commercial value and to affect results. It reasoned that in T10 “the result of each over could have an impact on the overall result,” and that he had endangered the welfare of the coach he tried to recruit.[9] The ICC announced on December 10, 2024 that he was banned from all cricket for six years, backdated to his provisional suspension on September 13, 2023.[10]

With those rulings, all eight people charged in September 2023 had been sanctioned. Bans ranged from two years for the non-cooperation and reporting offences to 17½ years for the club cricketer who ignored the process. Only two of the eight outcomes came after a contested hearing. The rest followed admissions or, in the club cricketer’s case, deemed admissions.[2][3][4][5][7][10] The ICC described the attempts as disrupted, and the sanction decision in the assistant coach’s case noted that “the details of the specific fix were not disclosed.”[1][9]

The core dilemma

Franchise leagues bring money, opportunity and entertainment to cricket, but also owners, staff and players outside traditional national structures. Corrupters can approach participants through gifts and personal ties, and anti-corruption systems depend on people reporting. How should cricket design and enforce rules that deter fixing, protect players and fairly distinguish between those who corrupt and those who stay silent?

Competing values

  • Deterrence vs. proportionality: long bans to send a message against sanctions scaled to culpability.
  • Reporting duty vs. loyalty: obligations to report teammates, owners or coaches against workplace relationships.
  • Growth of the game vs. integrity risk: new leagues and opportunities against weaker oversight.
  • Transparency vs. protection: naming wrongdoers against protecting witnesses.

Strongest arguments

For strict enforcement, including for non-reporting: corruption thrives on silence. Players who accept gifts and do not report approaches make fixing possible. Owners and coaches have power over players, so their misconduct is especially damaging.

For more graduated responses: a player who failed to report a gift is not a fixer. Long bans for non-disclosure may discourage players from coming forward late. Better education and protected reporting channels may achieve more than severe sanctions.

Applying the frameworks

Virtue ethics

A virtue lens asks what honesty and courage require when a gift or approach comes from someone connected to one’s team. It also asks what character owners and coaches should model in an environment of temptation.

Justice and fairness

A justice lens asks whether sanctions are consistent: a 17½-year ban for repeated attempts to corrupt, five years for a coach, two years for owners and a player. It asks whether these differences track culpability and power.

Utilitarian

A utilitarian lens weighs the deterrent value of publicized bans against the costs to individuals and to franchise cricket. It asks which mix of education, reporting duties and sanctions most reduces corruption.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

  1. Spot the issue. You are a player in a franchise league who receives a new phone from someone connected to your team, followed by a vague request. Stakeholders include you, teammates, the franchise, opponents, the league and fans. Less visible are other players who may be approached. The code is the league’s anti-corruption code, including its gift and disclosure rules.
  2. Gather facts. Who gave the gift, and what was asked? What is the gift threshold? Beware normalization bias: gifts may seem routine in a franchise environment.
  3. Test options. (a) Keep the gift and say nothing. (b) Return the gift without reporting. (c) Report the gift and approach to the anti-corruption official at once.
  4. Check codes and law. The code requires disclosure of gifts over the threshold and of approaches, and cooperation with investigations.
  5. Decide and document. Record dates, messages and what was said, and report through the official channel.
  6. Communicate and follow up. Cooperate fully, avoid discussing the matter with those involved, and seek support from your players’ association.

What’s settled and what’s contested

  • Settled: the September 2023 charges; the bans for Hossain, the club cricketer, the batting coach, both co-owners and the former Sri Lankan domestic player.
  • Contested: whether non-disclosure deserves sanctions close to those for active participation; how franchise leagues should vet owners and staff; how cricket should balance growth with oversight.

Why this case matters

The T10 case shows that corruption risks in modern cricket can come from inside a franchise, and that anti-corruption codes rely heavily on duties to report and cooperate. It is a template for how sport polices fast-growing private leagues.

Key terms

Corruption
The misuse of entrusted power for private gain, whether financial, sporting, administrative or cultural.
Integrity
A commitment to honesty and ethical principle in competition and administration, including when nobody is watching.
Whistleblowing
Disclosure of wrongdoing in the public interest by someone inside or close to an organization: a moral safety valve.
Sanction certainty
The principle that the likelihood of being caught and punished deters misconduct more than the severity of the punishment.
Conflict of interest
A situation where a person’s private interest could improperly influence a decision they make in an official role.
Principal–agent problem
When those acting on others’ behalf (agents such as executives, officials or agents) have interests that diverge from the people they serve.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

  1. Hossain was banned for failing to report a gift and an approach, not for fixing. Is a two-year ban proportionate?
  2. Two co-owners were among those sanctioned. What should leagues do to vet the people who own and run franchises?
  3. Why might corrupters target short-format franchise leagues more than international matches?
  4. Should there be different sanctions for players who refuse to cooperate and those who actively try to corrupt others?

Sources

  1. Eight charged under the Emirates Cricket Board Anti-Corruption Code — ICC
  2. Bangladesh's Nasir Hossain banned for two years for breaching anti-corruption code — ESPNcricinfo
  3. Rizwan Javed banned for 17 ½ years under Anti-Corruption Code — ICC
  4. Zaidi, Sanghavi and Choudhary banned under Anti-Corruption Code — ICC
  5. Saliya Saman banned for five years under Anti-Corruption Code — ICC
  6. Nasir Hossain resumes playing competitive cricket after two-year ban ends — ESPNcricinfo
  7. ICC (on behalf of the ECB) v. team manager: decision on admitted breach of Article 2.4.6 (2024, redacted) — ICC
  8. Anti-Corruption Tribunal decision on the merits (ECB Code; Oct. 18, 2024, redacted) — ICC
  9. Anti-Corruption Tribunal decision on sanction (ECB Code; Nov. 27, 2024, redacted) — ICC
  10. Assistant coach banned for six years under Anti-Corruption Code (Dec. 10, 2024) — ICC