The International Cricket Council on Tuesday announced that Bangladeshi spinner Shohaly Akhter has been handed a five-year ban after she admitted breaching five provisions of the ICC anti-corruption code.

The charges were in relation to corrupt approaches made during the matches of the 2023 Women's T20 World Cup which was held in South Africa.

Akhter, who admitted the charges of breaching Articles 2.1.1, 2.1.3, 2.1.4, 2.4.4 and 2.4.7 of the Code and accepted a five-year period of ineligibility, starting from February 10, 2025.

The ACU's investigation centred around Shohaly's conversation on Facebook Messenger with a Bangladesh cricketer on February 14, 2023. It was the day of the T20 World Cup match between Bangladesh and Australia.

She made an offer of Two million Bangladeshi Taka (USD 16,400 approx.) to the player to get out hit wicket during the match.

The player who was approached by Akhter reported the matter to the ACU immediately, providing all the voice notes from Shohaly, who had deleted those files on her devices.

When interviewed by the ACU, Shohaly confirmed that she did send the voice messages to the player but claimed that "she only did so in order to show her friend that members of the Bangladesh team were not involved in fixing, not because she was genuinely making a corrupt approach".

In her first interview with the ACU, Akhter showed the ACU screenshots which she claimed were a conversation between her and a friend about the "challenge".

She said that these messages had been exchanged prior to February 14, when she contacted the Bangladesh player.

The ACU however confirmed that those files were created after February 14 by "reviewing underlying metadata for the messages".

Based on the evidence through its investigations and the admissions of Akhter to the ACU, the ICC charged Akhter with Code Articles:

2.1.1 (on the basis that she contrived, or was party to an agreement or effort to fix or contrive or otherwise influence improperly, the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of International Matches).

2.1.3 (on the basis that she offered a Reward to [PLAYER A] (namely a payment of least 2 million Bangladesh taka) if she were to engage in corrupt conduct at the ICC Women's T20 World Cup.

2.1.4 (on the basis that she attempted to solicit, induce, entice, persuade, encourage or intentionally facilitate [PLAYER A] to breach Article 2.1).

2.4.4 (on the basis that she failed to report to the ACU the approaches and invitations that he received from [Mr Z] be a party to an agreement or effort to fix matches in the Women's T20 World Cup 2023).

2.4.7 (in that she obstructed the ACU's investigation by (i) fabricating a series of WhatsApp messages and (ii) deleting all of her messages with [PLAYER A] and, separately, with [Mr Z].

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