Corruption charges against Zimbabwe domestic cricket official

Rajan Nayar, a Zimbabwe domestic cricket official, has been charged with breaching the ICC Anti-Corruption Code on three counts, including offering a player cash to improperly influence an international match. Nayar is the treasurer and marketing director of the Harare Metropolitan Cricket Association (HMCA), the association that runs league cricket in Harare and oversees domestic franchise the Mashonaland Eagles.

He has been charged with breaching Article 2.1.1 of the ICC’s code (being party to an effort to fix or contrive or otherwise influence improperly the result, progress, conduct or other aspects of an international match or matches) and offering a player US$30,000 for the same. Subsequently, he has been provisionally suspended with immediate effect from his roles at the HMCA.

ESPNcricinfo understands that Nayar was the man who had approached Zimbabwe captain Graeme Cremer in October last year with an offer to engage in corrupt activities. When the Cremer news was reported, an ICC spokesperson had confirmed that an Anti-Corruption Unit investigation was “ongoing in Zimbabwe”.

At the time, the Cremer incident was the second time in two months that news had emerged of a corrupt approach made to an international captain. Sarfraz Ahmed, the Pakistan captain, also reported an allegedly corrupt approach in October. Also, days later, senior Indian curator Pandurang Salgaoncar was dismissed by the BCCI for “malpractice” after a sting operation by a TV channel produced footage of him talking to reporters allegedly posing as bookies about the Pune pitch ahead of an ODI between India and New Zealand.

Nayar is an official who is well known to players, a number of whom have expressed surprise that he has been implicated in such an investigation. He has 14 days, starting from 16 January, to respond to the charges.