Life Ban for Sreesanth, Four IPL Spot-Fixers Punished by BCCI After Probe

India international Sreesanth is one of four players found guilty of various spot- and match-fixing charges after a Board of Control for Cricket in India probe reached a conclusion.

Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila, Ankeet Chavan and Amit Singh were all found guilty by the report, as revealed by the Indian Express newspaper.

The BCCI's disciplinary committee have met and life bans have been issued to two of the players—Sreesanth and Chavan.

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#SpotFixing Breaking: Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan banned for life. Amit Singh gets 5 years, Sid Trivedi 1 year, Harmeet Singh exonerated

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) September 13, 2013"

The Rajasthan Royals players hit the press towards the end of the 2013 IPL season, bringing the tournament into disrepute over accusations that three players—Chandila, Chavan and Sreesanth—had been bribed to leak an agreed amount of runs per over during a match.

The author of the report, Ravi Sawani, has said his investigations turned up no reasons to let off the players lightly. As quoted by Cricinfo, Sawani said:

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There is no specific mitigating factor that would require any mercy while sanctioning the aforesaid guilty players. Sreesanth has played a number of international games and was part of the Indian national team which won the inaugural T20 World Cup, 2007 and ICC Cricket World Cup in 2011. He has received the ICC ACSU education programme on many occasions. 

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In addition to the four players, Siddharth Trivedi and Harmeet Singh have also been found guilty of minor offences in the report.

Trivedi and Singh failed to report approaches from bookmakers and the knowledge that others had been approached over fixing a match. Additionally, Trivedi received a payment or gift in return for the possibility of bringing the game into disrepute.

But while Trivedi was punished with a year's suspension, Singh was exonerated.