IPL 2020: BCCI reveals THIS major step in fight to curb match fixing in the tournament

Cricket has always been referred to as the 'Gentlemen's Game'. However, the game has often been exposed on many occasions in history when it comes to corrupt activities such as illegal betting, match-fixing, spot-fixing, ball-tampering and so on. The Indian Premier League, which is arguably the biggest cricketing extravaganza each year, has also fallen prey many times to corruption by either players or team officials.

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Apart from money, the Indian Premier League tournament has had its own share of controversies, especially the spot-fixing scandal. Back in 2013, Kerala pacer, S Sreesanth was banned for life by the Board of Cricket for Control in India (BCCI) for his alleged involvement in the scandal along with his then Rajasthan Royals teammates Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila. However, Sreesanth's ban was later reduced to seven years and it came to an end on September 13.

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With the IPL 2020 set to get underway from Saturday, September 19, the BCCI is taking all the steps to ensure that the tournament is free from the possibility of match-fixing. In order to do that, the board has tied up with a UK-based company, who will be providing them with services to ensure a clean tournament in the UAE.

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IPL 2020: BCCI's latest arrangement to stop match-fixing

As per the report published by PTI, the BCCI has tied up with Sportradar, which will be offering a special Fraud Detection Service to prevent match-fixing, betting and other corrupt practices during the upcoming IPL 2020 event. An IPL source, while talking to the news agency, said that the BCCI has inked a deal with Sportradar for the IPL 2020 and the company will be working closely with the Anti Corruption Unit (ACU) and offer their integrity services.

The source further added that Sportradar has very recently red-flagged at least half a dozen games in the recent Goa football league, which was suspicious due to alleged match-fixing. They have also worked with FIFA, UEFA and various leagues across the globe.

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IPL 2020: All you need to know about Fraud Detection Service 

The Fraud Detection System (FDS) by Sportradar will identify betting-related manipulation in sport due to the system's sophisticated algorithms and constantly maintained database of odds which are leveraged for the purpose of detecting match-fixing. The company, by using the FDS, will track the odds and movements of at least 600 independent bookmakers to detect anomalies in betting patterns and will also process around 5 million data sets per day. Apart from bookies and possible corruptors, FDS will be also keeping an eye on multiple fantasy gaming companies, which could ironically also include Dream11, the title sponsors of the tournament. While there is a fine line between fantasy gaming and betting, the former has some elements of the latter.

IPL venues 

Coming to the IPL venues, the BCCI announced the entire IPL schedule on September 6. The tournament will commence on September 19 and will be played until November 10. The IPL 2020 matches will be across three venues of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) i.e. Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

IPL schdule and 1st match of IPL 2020

The 1st match of the IPL 2020 will be played between defending champions Mumbai Indians led by Rohit Sharma and Chennai Super Kings led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Coming to the IPL schedule, the matches will start half an hour earlier in the upcoming edition. The afternoon matches are set to begin at 3:30 PM IST while the evening games will commence at 7:30 PM IST.  Here's the complete IPL schedule -

Image Source: Jay Shah Twitter