Oman player gets 7-year ban

HONG KONG: Oman’s Yousuf Abdulrahim Al Balushi has been banned for seven years for match-fixing, the International Cricket Council said on Monday.

Al Balushi admitted the four charges against him, which stem from the men’s Twenty20 World Cup qualifiers held in the United Arab Emirates last year. The 29-year-old attempted to fix games and tried to enlist a team-mate to help him, the ICC said.

“This is a very serious offence where a player attempted but failed to get a team-mate to engage in corrupt activity in high profile games and this is reflected in the severity of the sentence,” said ICC integrity general manager Alex Marshall. Without Mr. Balushi’s admission of guilt and full cooperation throughout our investigation, the ban could have been significantly longer.”