“We’ve had a number of approaches made on social media to players already this season”

Image courtesy of: Zimbio

Cricket Australia have confirmed that foreign bookmakers are trying to coax information out of Australian players by contacting them via social media.

Cricket Australia’s head of integrity Iain Roy revealed that suspected bookies have used social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to reach out to players in an attempt to obtain information about things from team line-ups to the pitch conditions.

It has also been confirmed that many of the male and female players that have been contacted are on the verge of being included in the national teams or Big Bash League (BBL) franchises.

“We’ve had a number of approaches made on social media to players already this season,” Roy told News Corp. “Twitter approaches asking for information about team selection, pitches and that sort of thing.”

Roy did not confirm how many players had been approached thus far, but he also pointed out that the board are keeping an eye out on pitch-siders, who are people that are present at the match and feed information to the bookies in order for them to manipulate the betting market as the broadcast on their end is delayed by up to 14 seconds.

“They are actually reporting it back to people who we think are involved in illegal bookmaking operations overseas in the subcontinent and United Arab Emirates,” Roy told the Daily Telegraph.

In the recent ODI series between Australia and New Zealand, a man was ejected from the Manuka Oval in Canberra after police suspected that he was using his phone to send live information to a foreign bookmaker.