It is understood that those ejected were overheard commentating on mobile phones on the match, which was being televised by Sky, and exploiting the time delay between live action and television broadcast in India to manipulate the illegal betting market on the sub-continent.
The England and Wales Cricket Board’s team of anti-corruption officers, all of them former police officers, have been particularly vigilant this season and have already ejected suspected ‘court siders’ from more than a dozen county grounds.
The ECB has drawn up a blacklist of those ejected from grounds to make identification easier for their anti-corruption officers, but some of those removed from one ground are known to have re-appeared at another venue.
The latest ejections, for breaching ECB and ground regulations rather committing a criminal offence, come at a time when more matches are being investigated by cricket’s anti-corruption officials.
The ECB’s anti-corruption unit has confirmed that Sussex’s CB40 match against Kent in August 2011 remains a live investigation while the recent one-day series between West Indies and Pakistan in the Caribbean is also understood to be under scrutiny from the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit.
The ICC originally investigated the Sussex v Kent match for claims that the match was fixed in favour of a Kent win because the ECB did not then have its own anti-corruption team.
The ECB unit, which was established in late 2011, took over the investigation and has continued to probe claims that some Sussex players were approached by bookmakers with a view to fixing the result.
Sussex confirmed in a statement last November that approaches were made to their players but they declined to comment furtheron Sunday night.
The Pakistan Cricket Board said that it was “obviously extremely concerned” at the recent allegations. In a statement the organisation said: “The PCB maintains zero tolerance towards corruption but investigations in this matter falls within the purview of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit.”
The ICC are likely to request information from legitimate bookmakers to establish whether the series was subject to unusual betting patterns.
Identifying suspicious betting patterns is only the start, but establishing a direct link between bookmakers and players has proved more difficult for cricket’s anti-corruption officials.
Last year Essex pace bowler Mervyn Westfield became the first English player to be convicted of spot-fixing when he was jailed for four months for accepting £6,000 to under-perform in a one day match at Durham in 2009.
Westfield was arrested after he showed his then county team-mate Tony Palladino the money and Palladino reported him to Essex.
Westfield has been banned from county cricket for five years but he will be permitted to play club cricket again from April 1 next year provided he helps the Professional Cricketers’ Association in its extensive anti-corruption education programme.
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