In an interview with ESPNcricinfo Ajit Singh, the head of the BCCI’s ACU (Anti-Corruption Unit) has said it is going to be a better and more secure IPL (Indian Premier League) season because of the bioSecure bubble in which all the players and the team management will be staying.
This year after getting permission from the Federal Government BCCI decides that the show must go on and decided to conduct this year IPL in UAE, which will start from Sept 19 and will last for 53 days. The venues will be in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.
ACU’s chief said, “One can’t say whether it is going to be the safest one, but definitely it is going to be better from the anti-corruption point of view because there is going to be no interaction between the teams, support staff and outsiders,” Singh told on Thursday. “This season is going to be comparatively more secure. But, still, it is not (going to be) foolproof thing.”
As all the eight teams will be living in a different biosecure bubble so there will not be any personal contact from anyone outside. And all the activities of the players will not be monitored digitally but severely restricted.
“They throng around the hotel, keep sitting in the hotel lobby, come as sponsors asking players to become brand ambassadors, which is basically a cover [for corrupt activity], so that sort of a thing would be avoided this time,” Singh said.
However, there is still a big challenge in front of ACU and that is Social Media, as the personal contact won’t be available they may use social media on which Ajit said, “Instead of person-to-person communication or direct face-to-face communication, there could be communicated through social media, If somebody approaches me on Facebook and then it starts as an innocent post coming from a fan, ultimately if you find that there is some possibility of being able to compromise the person you might make an attempt. So, we have to continue with the [anti-corruption] education.”
He also said that they will be monitoring the betting industry very closely as well. He said, “We would be monitoring the betting market, how the betting market is going, does it give suspicious trends. And one has to keep the informers active and then also monitor social media.”
