Indian cricket board renews bowler Shami's contract

NEW DELHI: India’s cricket board said on Thursday that it will renew the contract of fast bowler Mohammed Shami, who has been accused of corruption, after it was initially put on hold.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had withheld Shami’s contract pending a review into a series of allegations made by his wife, including corruption and even attempted murder.

An anti-graft committee, which looks into the BCCI’s matters, was appointed to investigate a corruption charge that Shami accepted money sent to him by a UK businessman through a Pakistani woman in Dubai.

On Thursday, the cricket board said that “no further actions/ proceedings under the BCCI anti-corruption code are warranted in the matter”.

“For this reason, the BCCI shall proceed with offering a Grade ‘B’ annual retainership contract to Mohd. Shami,” it said in a statement late Thursday.

A grade “B” contract means he will receive an annual salary of 30 million rupees ($460,200), and he will be able to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for his Delhi Daredevils team that starts April 7.

The BCCI had dropped Shami from a list of contracted players unveiled earlier this month, which saw skipper Virat Kohli and other top Test players awarded salaries just over $1 million.

The cricketer’s wife Hasin Jahan, a former model, also accused him of having numerous affairs and went public in early March with a series of messages that Shami allegedly sent to women during their four-year marriage.

The 27-year-old has dismissed the accusations of infidelity as a campaign to defame him.

Indian police are investigating the allegation of attempted murder.

BCCI had stated earlier that it would be looking only into particular allegations within its code of conduct and not all of them.

“We are only concerned with what the Anti Corruption Unit is investigating, not his personal life,” Rajiv Shukla, IPL chairman, had said on Wednesday.