South Africa cricket news: Gulam Bodi jailed over spot-fixing

Former South African cricketer Gulam Bodi has been sentenced to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to eight charges of corruption. He became the first cricketer to be imprisoned under the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act of 2004. The act came into effect in the aftermath of Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal.

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Gulam Bodi jailed for 5 years over spot-fixing

The cricketer was charged under the Anti-corruption code of Cricket South Africa (CSA) during the 2015 Ram Slam T20 Challenge. CSA made an official statement on January 2016 in which they confirmed that Bodi was at the centre of a possible match-fixing case. Later that same month, the South African cricket governing body imposed a 20-year ban on the batsman. Two years later, Bodi pleaded guilty to eight charges of corruption, which resulted in the possibility of him facing 15-years of prison time. The case went on for months and it was finally decided that the South African would be facing five years in jail on corruption charges.

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Gulam Bodi’s international and domestic career

Bodi has represented South Africa in two ODI’s and a lone T20 international. The left-handed batsman scored 83 runs at 41.50 in his two ODI outings. He also scored 51 in one of the games to register his only international half-century. In his lone T20 international debut, the batsman could manage only 8 runs.

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Gulam Bodi, however, had a much more prolific first-class and List A career for his domestic teams. Bodi scored over 5,000 runs in 108 first-class matches at an impressive average of 32.47. He also scored 4,105 runs in 144 List A matches in South African domestic one-day competition.

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