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Heath Streak says he is not a fixer but accepts ICC’s eight-year ban
Former Zimbabwe captain and coach Heath Streak has accepted the charges levied at him by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for breaching the code of ethics and corruption and sharing, compromising information, that may be used for spot-fixing and /or match-fixing. But the 47-year-old also attested that he was never involved in any kind of fixing knowingly and that he is not a ‘fixer’. "I want to place on record to the public and fans that I was not involved in any match-fixing, spot-fixing or attempts to influence a game or share information from a changeroom during a match at any given time in our relationship. This position has been confirmed by the ICC itself in its own statement," Streak said in a personal press statement, as reported by ESPNCricinfo. Divulging the details of his association with Deepak Agarwal, an Indian bookmaker, Streak said, "In 2017, I met an individual keen to invest in cricket in Africa and in particular they wanted to sponsor a T20 Tournament in Zimbabwe, which would be called the Safari Blast. The individual was subsequently vetted and cleared through the usual protocols and to be honest, I let my guard down as the friendship and potential business partnership blossomed.” Saying that he pursued that relationship with Deepak in the hope of encouraging cricket in Zimbabwe, Streak revealed that he was only paid in bitcoin for investment in various regional leagues and not for anything else. "At the onset I was engaged, and paid the Bitcoin, to assist in buying and building teams in different regional T20 competitions, which was successful, resulting in the purchase of a team in Dubai for this individual. Much later on in our friendship, the only other thing I received was a bottle of whisky and my wife has gifted a phone,” he said. Streak, who represented Zimbabwe in 65 Tests, 189 ODIs, further pointed out that it was only through ICC that he realised that the friendship was nothing but a tool to extract information from his end. “Several months down the line the ICC then brought to my attention the fact that the individual with whom I had been dealing, and some of the information that I had shared during our friendship/interaction may have been used for online betting," said Streak who coaxed several teams including Gujarat Lions and KKR in the IPL. The owner of an academy and huge farms in Zimbabwe, Streak asked the media to consider solely him responsible for his actions and not punish his friends family and Zimbabwe cricket. "I also hope that cricket in Zimbabwe should not be punished or suffer for my actions directly or indirectly. I commit to serving out my sanction as guided by the ICC and am committed to helping them and cricket in Zimbabwe in whatever manner I can," wrote the man with 4933 international runs and 445 wickets to his kitty. Although he might have only been punished with eight years of ban from involvement in any sort of cricket by the ICC, Zimbabwe's sports and recreation commission is looking at different angles of his involvement with the scope of corruption. If found guilty Streak might have much more problems up his sleeves.
