Nasir Jamshed jailed for 17 months in PSL bribery case

Manchester: Former Pakistan batsman Nasir Jamshed has been handed a 17-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to bribe fellow cricketers in the Pakistan Super League (PSL).

Jamshed, who pleaded guilty to the charges last December, has been sentenced to 17 months in prison at Manchester Crown Court, reports ESPNcricinfo.

The 33-year-old was standing trial following his arrest in February 2017 alongside two UK nationals, Yousef Anwar, 36, and Mohammed Ijaz, 34. Anwar has been sentenced to 40 months in prison and Ijaz 30 months.

Both Anwar and Ijaz had also admitted to offering financial advantages to the PSL players with the intention of inducing them to perform improperly by failing to play competitively in good faith.

Jamshed had originally denied being involved in a plan focused on the PSL, but changed his plea during a court hearing then. Prosecutors had, in December 2019, told the court that as part of the British's National Crime Agency investigation, an undercover police officer infiltrated the spot-fixing network, and secured an initial meeting with Anwar, by posing as a member of a corrupt betting syndicate.

That led to the uncovering of an attempted fix in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) in 2016 and an actual fix in the PSL in 2017, with Jamshed agreeing to not score runs from the first two balls.

Jamshed was in 2018 banned from the sport for 10 years following an investigation by the PCB's anti-corruption unit. Before that, in December 2017, he was first banned for 12 months by the same tribunal for failing to cooperate with the investigation.

The left-handed batsman, who played two Tests, 48 ODIs and 18 T20Is for Pakistan until 2015, was targeted for the BPL and then encouraged others to spot-fix in a fixture between Islamabad United and Peshawar Zalmi in Dubai in February 2017.

In a statement issued after the sentence was handed down, Jamshed's wife, Samara Afzal, told of the "pain and humiliation" that her husband's actions had caused to their family.

"Nasir could have had a bright future had he worked hard and been committed to the sport than gave him so much, but he took a short cut and lost everything, his career, status, respect and freedom," she wrote. "He would have got the UK nationality and played county cricket, and he threw his chance away.

"He would do anything to turn the clock back and not lose everything, especially his daughter who he is very close to, but it's too late for him. I hope all cricketers look at his example as a deterrent against corruption," she added.

(IANS)