Dave Richardson asks Al Jazeera to hand over material pertaining to fixing

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Bengaluru, June 1: ICC CEO Dave Richardson on Friday (June 1) urged the Al Jazeera channel to hand over the material evidence on which they aired a documentary highlighting the pitch-fixing in Test cricket.

"I ask Al Jazeera to release to us all the material they have relating to corruption in cricket. We will conduct a full, thorough and fair investigation and will ensure no stone is left unturned as we examine all allegations of corruption made in the programme. To do so, we need to see all the evidence they state they possess," said Richardson in a statement released by the ICC.

"I am encouraged by their public commitment to cooperate and now ask that they do so, in releasing all relevant material. We understand and fully respect the need to protect journalistic sources and our ACU team have worked with other media companies on that basis. However, to prove or disprove these allegations, we need to see the evidence referred to in the programme," said Richardson.

The matches in question were Australia's third Test against India at Ranchi in 2017 and the final Test between India and England at Chennai, and the documentary alleged that three England and two Australian players agreed to score at a rate specified by the fixers.

Richardson had said he had watched the Al Jazeera documentary and got angered to see that "criminals" are "swanning around" cricket.

"We are obviously very much aware there are these types of individuals and types of criminal groups around world who are trying to get into cricket, trying to get hold of players, trying to get hold of groundsmen But it was reminder that these guys are at work and they are not going away and we've got our work cut out trying to disrupt them," he had said.

However, Richardson had stated that there was no evidence to suggest that ICC's anti-corruption officials have been involved in such nefarious activities.

"At this stage there is no evidence to suggest that is the case, but one of the allegations that has been made and we will look at it," Richardson said. "If your own officials, hired to do the job of protecting the integrity of cricket are compromised in any way obviously that is a concern. There is no evidence to suggest at this stage that is the case," he had said.