The International Cricket Council (ICC) has banned former Zimbabwe batsman Brendan Taylor from all cricket for three-and-a-half years after he confessed to doing drugs and taking a $15 000 (R229055) “deposit” for spot-fixing.
Earlier this week, Taylor made a sensational public admission about his errant ways that have cost him his cricket career.
“I’ve been carrying a burden for over two years that has sadly taken me to some very dark places and had a profound effect on my mental health,” said Taylor in a written statement he posted on Twitter on Monday.
The former Zimbabwe national cricket team captain said Indian businessmen had lured him into a spot-fixing arrangement in October 2019.
Taylor said he took the “deposit” at a time when his employer Zimbabwe Cricket had failed to pay national team players’ salaries for six months.
To add to his predicament, Taylor said he had been filmed snorting coke by the businessmen who had paid for his trip to India from Zimbabwe.
Taylor said the businessmen used the video clip to blackmail him into agreeing to spot-fix at cricket matches – something he said he never did.
The former skipper said he struggled to cope mentally with his situation for four months before he came clean and told the ICC the mess he had landed himself in.
On Friday, the ICC said: “Former Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor has been banned from all cricket for three and a half years after he accepted breaching four charges of the ICC Anti-Corruption Code and, separately, one charge of the ICC Anti-Doping Code”.
The 35-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman, who is one of the finest players that Zimbabwe has ever produced, abandoned international cricket after the 2015 World Cup.
Taylor returned to the Zimbabwe team in 2017 before retiring again from international cricket last year.