Ex South African Bowler Pumelela Matshikwe, found guilty in 2015 Ram Slam Issue

Pumelela Matshikwe was sentenced to six years in prison, with five years suspended, for his role in the 2015 match-fixing incident at the Ram Slam T20 event in South Africa. Here in this article, we talk about ram slam match-fixing due to which Pumelela Matshikwe was suspended.

Matshikwe is a former Lions player who now lives in South Africa. In 2016, the CSA’s anti-corruption unit handed out hefty punishments to six players. He was banned from all cricket for 10 years and is now the second player convicted under the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities (PRECCA) Act, which was enacted in 2004 in the aftermath of the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal at the turn of the millennium. Gulam Bodi was the first.

Matshikwe was found guilty on Friday after reaching an agreement with a Pretoria criminal court.

Matshikwe was found guilty of the following offenses:

• Receiving a bribe or reward in exchange for fixing, concocting, or inappropriately influencing a match or matches in the 2015 Ram Slam competition
• Making a payment that might throw cricket’s reputation into shame
• Failing to report the payment to the CSA anti-corruption officer for a violation of the Code, which they knew or should have known was made to them.
• Failure to reveal specifics of a plan to engage in corrupt behavior, as well as failure to provide complete information of things indicating a breach of the code by another participant.

Bodi, Thami Tsolekile, Jean Symes, Ethy Mbhalati, and Alviro Petersen are the other players who have been fined in connection with the 2015 case. In 2019, after pleading guilty to eight counts of corruption, Bodi was sentenced to five years in jail.

Tsolekile, a former South African Test cricketer, was given a 12-year sentence for “contriving to rig a match or matches in the 2015 Ram Slam; failing to disclose the complete contents of an attempt to engage in corrupt activity to the CSA Anti-Corruption Officer.” Mbhalati was given a ten-year suspension, while Symes was given a seven-year term.

After confessing to 13 violations of the anti-corruption rule, Petersen, the most notable of the cricketers who played in 36 Tests, 21 T20Is, and two T20Is, was suspended for two years by the CSA.

Matshikwe, who is now 37, has 178 wickets at an average of 30.01 in 77 first-class matches. Between 2009 and 2016, he played in 57 List A matches and 24 T20 games.