Isabelle Westbury is a freelance journalist who writes for the SII. Her focus is on politics and sport, especially cricket. She has written for a number of publications including The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Mail and The Sun, and broadcasts on cricket for the BBC. She has an undergraduate degree from Oxford University, where she was President of the Oxford Union, as well as a postgraduate degree in law. She is also Middlesex CCC women’s cricket captain.
All posts by Isabelle Westbury
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has banned the left-arm spinner Raza Hasan for two years, after he failed an in-competition doping test during the domestic Pentangular One-Day Cup in early 2015. Hasan failed to respond to an adverse analytical finding within a two-week time limit which, under Article 7.7 of the...
South Korea’s professional basketball league, the Korean Basketball League (KBL), yesterday issued a statement apologising for an investigation into match-fixing which has been widely reported by local media outlets. The Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s largest news agency based in the country’s capital, Seoul, reported that police were investigating...
Indian Test captain Virat Kohli, who also captains the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League (IPL), was found guilty of breaching a provision of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) anti-corruption code, according to ESPN Cricinfo. Kohli met his girlfriend Anushka Sharma during the...
Italian police have arrested more than 50 people on suspicion of match-fixing in Italian football, according to local reports. The arrests come following an extensive investigation by anti-mafia prosecutors in the southern town of Catanzaro, the capital of the southern Italian region of Calabria. A further 70 people are...
The President of the top-flight Turkish club Genclerbirligi has reportedly denied accusations that the club’s goalkeeper deliberately failed to save the winning goal during a league game against Super Lig leaders Galatasaray. Speaking to the Turkish newspaper Habertürk, Ilhan Cavcav told the paper that goalkeeper Ferhat Kaplan ‘could have...
Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha has ordered the removal of 45 officials and local administrators under investigation for corruption, including the country’s Tourism and Sport Ministry permanent secretary and the Physical Education Department Director-General. Those being investigated are understood to have purchased sports and fitness equipment at artificially high prices...
The Brazilian football confederation (CBF) has admitted that it has a commercial contract with Internacional Sports Events (ISE), however has denied newspaper reports which suggested that the contract allowed ISE control the selection of players for friendly football internationals. Brazilian newspaper Estadão released an investigative report which claimed that...
Just two months after the South African Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula criticised FIFA for failing to swiftly deal with allegations that warm-up matches ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup were fixed, new allegations of match-fixing in South Africa have surfaced. Local newspapers in South Africa have reported that...
On Monday the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) held a press conference in Dhaka to announce a potential relaunch of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), with the BCB looking to start a third edition beginning in December 2015. There have already been two editions of the BPL, but nothing since...
In a joint letter to the President of the Hellenic Football Federation (EPO), FIFA and UEFA have expressed their surprise at amendments to a draft bill to tackle violence in football, which threatens the ability of the EPO to manage its affairs independently and without the influence of any...
New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady has been suspended without pay for the first four games of the 2015 football season for conduct “detrimental to the integrity of the NFL”. An NFL report published last week found that it was “more probable than not” that at least two staff of...
Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs announced on 5 May that eight individuals have been detained by police following an extensive investigation by the Anti-Corruption Agency in the cities of Tbilisi and Kutaisi. The suspects were detained due to allegations that they bribed participants of professional sports competitions. The Ministry’s...
On Tuesday, Copenhagen City Court convicted a Danish national of aggravated fraud in relation to two football matches played in the second tier of Danish football, the 1st Division, in 2010, but acquitted his accomplice. The court said that the convicted man was accused of placing DKK170,000 (€22,800) and...
Last week the Disciplinary Panel of the British Horceracing Authority (BHA) cleared licensed jockey Richie McGrath and registered professional Mark Aspey, a professional gambler and horse-owner, of conspiring to commit corrupt or fraudulent practices in relation to racing. McGrath, along with six others, was charged in September last year...
The Norwegian football association (NFF) has welcomed the conviction of three former professional footballers on 29 April for attempting to fix matches in Norway’s third division in June 2012. ‘This judgment sends out an important signal that you do not fix matches in Norway and go unpunished’, read a...
