The former Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor has come out with a sensational revelation saying that he accepted 15 thousand dollars from the bookies to fix cricket matches in 2019, but he did not go on to fix them and eventually reported the approach to the ICC.
According to a statement released by Brendan Taylor on his Twitter account, he was contacted by an Indian businessman to travel to India for some sponsorship-related conversations and one day before his return back home, he was offered “cocaine”. Taylor said he should have denied it, but he got indulged in it.
The next day when he woke up in his hotel room, he found several men in his room who told him that he would have to fix matches for them going forward, otherwise, they have a video of him taking cocaine and the video would be made public.
Taylor said that out of fear and to ensure his safety, he took the money from those people as he just wanted to fly out of India at that point of time before he could decide a future course of action. When he reached Zimbabwe, he wanted to convey the matter to the International Cricket Council (ICC), but he was not in a great frame of mind.
Delayed reporting because I was worried about my family: Brendan Taylor
Taylor said that he was not sure about the safety of himself and his family even after reaching Zimbabwe and he took his time to get to a stage where he thought reporting the matter to ICC was appropriate. He was hoping that ICC would understand the reasons why he reported the matter late.
But, as it turned out, the ICC officials were in no mood to go easy on the delay and Taylor himself revealed in his statement, even before the ICC, that the global cricket governing body is now planning to impose a “multi-year” ban on him. Nothing has come out from the ICC yet and one can only guess the length of punishment.
It’s a 4-page statement where Taylor thanked his friends and family for staying with him through this torrid time and insisted that he felt relieved after sharing his pain with others, rather than keeping it all inside and suffering for years. Taylor will soon start his rehabilitation as he says he is keen to “get clean”.
Here is the full statement released by Brendan Taylor earlier this morning –
To my family, friends and supporters. Here is my full statement. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/sVCckD4PMV
— Brendan Taylor (@BrendanTaylor86) January 24, 2022
