Akhilesh Reddy asked a team-mate to concede runs, and the ICC gave him eight years
An ICC tribunal has banned the USA offspinner from all cricket until November 2033, with an extra year added for deleting the WhatsApp messages that would have proved it.
Aug 5, 2026
Akhilesh Reddy’s franchise career amounted to two matches for Aspin Stallions in the Abu Dhabi T10. What he did on the morning of one of them has cost him the next eight years.
A team-mate said no, and reported it
The case turns on 19 November 2025, at the team hotel, hours before the Stallions’ opening game. Reddy approached a team-mate, identified through the process only as Player A, and asked him to concede extra runs while bowling. Player A refused, reported the approach, and was left out of the side shortly afterwards.
That refusal is the only reason there is a case at all. Approaches in franchise cricket surface when the player on the receiving end reports them, and almost never otherwise, which is the uncomfortable foundation the anti-corruption codes are built on. Reddy then deleted his WhatsApp conversations and call logs with Player A. He told the tribunal this was routine data hygiene. The tribunal did not believe him.
Seven years, plus one for the phone
The independent tribunal found Reddy guilty on all three counts he was charged with. Article 2.1.1 covers attempting to fix or improperly influence the result, progress or conduct of a match. Article 2.1.4 covers soliciting another participant into the same thing, which is the approach to Player A. Article 2.4.7 covers obstructing an investigation, in this case by wiping the phone.
The sanctions are worth reading closely, because the arithmetic tells you what the tribunal cared about. Reddy got seven years for the fixing and solicitation charges, served concurrently. The obstruction charge added another year on top, consecutively. Deleting the messages, in other words, cost him a full extra year that a straight admission would not have.
The ban was announced on 3 August and backdated to 21 November 2025, the day he was provisionally suspended. It runs to November 2033. He is 26 now.
One wicket, four caps, seven months
Reddy grew up in Hyderabad, where his cricket reached a Vijay Hazare Trophy squad and net-bowling duty for Sunrisers Hyderabad without turning into anything more. He got his international cricket in the USA instead. He debuted in April 2025 against the Cayman Islands in the North America T20 Cup and took a wicket in that game. He played three more T20Is, took none, and has not appeared for the USA since.
Seven months separated his first international match from his provisional suspension. He is also not the only American in front of the anti-corruption process. Aaron Jones, whose unbeaten 94 against Canada launched the USA’s 2024 T20 World Cup, was charged in late January 2026 with five breaches, most of them relating to a Barbados T10 competition under Cricket West Indies’ code and two to international matches under the ICC’s. He was preparing for the 2026 T20 World Cup at the time. The ICC said then that the charges belonged to a wider investigation likely to produce more.
Why it keeps being the T10s
The Abu Dhabi T10’s 2021 edition alone produced eight charges, spanning a Bangladesh international, two team co-owners, two domestic players, a batting coach, an assistant coach and a team manager, with bans that ran as long as six years. The 2025 edition has now produced this one.
The format is the reason, and it is not complicated. Ten overs a side means one generous over can settle a match, so a fixer does not need a batting collapse or a captain in his pocket. The playing pool is heavy on associate and fringe professionals on modest money, a long way from the central contracts that make the risk look absurd. And the scrutiny is a fraction of what surrounds an international fixture. Reddy did not ask for a result. He asked for runs, which in ten overs is close enough to the same thing.
Eight years for a player with four caps reads steep until you separate what was actually punished. Trying to fix a game is one charge. Trying to pull a team-mate in with you, then clearing the phone, is what turned it into a career.