In the last three months, barring a few small leagues, there hasn’t been much cricketing action in the Asian subcontinent. When reports emerged of a new T20 tournament being played in Sri Lanka emerged, the fans thought they would get to witness some quality live action now in Asia. However, in a bizarre turn of events, while the tournament kicked off, the matches were played in India and not Sri Lanka.
On July 6, the Punjab Police arrested Ravinder Dandiwal, who is accused of running an international match-fixing syndicate in Mohali. Dandiwal was arrested after he was named by other accused in organising a fake tournament, the so-called ‘Sri Lanka UVA T20 league’, at a ground in Sawara village near Chandigarh.
Dream11, a fantasy sports platform and a sponsor of the Indian Premier League (IPL), has now come under scrutiny after the BCCI’s anti-corruption unit (ACU) provided inputs to Mohali police suggesting the platform may have ‘links’ to the fake T20 league they are investigating.
“There is also a chance that Dream11 may be linked. We think the kits used might have been from a previous Dream11 tournament. All of the kits had ‘Dream11’ on the back – there is clearly a chance that these could have been forged, but two sides had tape covering up the Dream11 sign. This is strange: if someone was forging it and didn’t want two sides to have it displayed then arguably, they wouldn’t print in the first place,” the ACU said in a communication with Mohali Police, as reported in the Indian Express.
“With regard to FanCode, we would also question their involvement as it should not be easy to persuade them to stream a tournament like this,” the letter said.
ACU chief Ajit Singh Shekhawat has confirmed that the unit also provided pointers to the Mohali Police. “We are not saying they (Dream11) are involved but as FanCode is involved, we need to investigate how the match was given, who bought the proposal to cover it. There could be some document which could be fake as the Sri Lankan board has denied issuing any sanction to that tournament. FanCode can be a guide to the investigation. So, we have asked Police to ask them too,” the report added.
