Fixing a cricket match is now a criminal offence in Sri Lanka for which the concerned person might have to face a jail term of 10 years if he is found guilty.
While fixing a cricket match is illegal in most of the cricketing countries, not every country has a provision of such strict punishment for the offense.
Match fixing had a very wide network in cricket in the 90s, but ICC, the governing body of the game, controlled it to a very large extent in the last decade.
However, the fixers somehow have made their way into the sport again in the recent times. Players from various countries have been caught having links with the fixers and it’s not only limited to international cricket. It’s there in league cricket as well.
Contacting the cricketers, when they are playing for their franchises in league cricket, is comparatively easier for the fixers.
It was only the last week that CM Gautam, a prominent Karnataka cricketer, was arrested by the police on the account of being directly involved in spot fixing in the Karnataka Premier League (KPL).
Before that, the former Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan was banned by the ICC, not for having played a hand in fixing, but for not informing the ICC about the approach from the fixers.
The UAE team has been under the microscope too as two of their senior cricketers Mohammad Naveed and Shaiman Anwar have faced the suspension for their links with the fixers.
Sri Lanka Cricket itself has been hampered by fixing in the past as one of their former international cricketers, Dilhara Lokuhettige, was suspended in 2018.
With the provision of a 10-year prison sentence, Sri Lanka have set an example for the rest of the world in terms of adopting a zero-tolerance policy against any sort of corruption in sports.
