In a time that is already in turmoil, Cricket Canada has received more bad news as the Board’s President, Arvinder Khosa, was allegedly attacked in his home in the early hours of Wednesday.
Unidentified miscreants reportedly fired some guns towards Khosa’s house at 4:40 AM local time while the house was occupied. No injuries have been reported, but bullet holes have been found in the doors, windows, and walls of the house.
Arvinder Khosa appointed President in April
In April of this year, Khosa was appointed interim President of Cricket Canada after former CEO Salman Khan’s exit.
Khan had previous criminal charges against him, which the Canadian Board had failed to disclose to the ICC. Eventually, he was removed from the post, and a nine-person board of directors was appointed.
At Cricket Canada’s Annual General Meeting earlier in May, the board announced governance reforms as part of their transition initiative.
Lawrence Bishnoi gang suspected to be behind the attack
Khosa confirmed that his home had been shot at while he was there, but no injuries were reported. Khosa lives in the Newton neighbourhood of the town of Surrey in British Columbia Province.
While local police have not identified any suspects just yet, it is believed that the attack is a part of an extortion case.
Previously, infamous gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and his gang were accused of extorting and intimidating both players and board members in Canadian cricket.
In a documentary by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), it was alleged that the Bishnoi gang was threatening players and board members to “take care” of certain players in the Canadian team. Specifically, the threats had said that certain players should never be dropped from the team, no matter what.
In another investigative documentary by the CBC, Arvinder Khosa himself was named as having connections to local players allegedly involved with the Bishnoi gang.
The documentary went on to say that the players of the National Team had started claiming gang affiliations, and one player had used the Bishnoi name to threaten another in 2025.
Cricket Canada under ACU investigation
The attack on Khosa’s house comes at a sensitive time when there are currently multiple open investigations by the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on the Canadian team.
One of them was opened more recently, right after the T20 World Cup in February-March. This investigation pertains to Canada’s loss to New Zealand in the tournament.
Specifically, the investigation appears to be targeting an over bowled by the Canadian captain, Dilpreet Bajwa, which had gone for 15 runs. Each of the previous two overs had brought wickets while Canada were defending just 173.
The allegations were made by an investigative documentary run by the CBC. The second ACU investigation was also opened due to another CBC documentary.
In that documentary, audio calls from 2024 were leaked where the former Head Coach of the Canadian National Team, Khuram Chohan, said that senior board members had pressurised him to pick certain players, and there were hints of match-fixing as well.
Chohan’s successor, Pubudu Dassanayake, had also made similar claims. Dassanayake is no longer the coach of the Canadian team, either, having moved to the USA.
ICC freezes the Board’s funding
After the above allegations surfaced, the International Cricket Council frozen their funding to Cricket Canada earlier this month.
The ICC said that they were not going to give any funding to the Canadian board for the next six months, citing what they referred to as a “governance failure.”
Also Read: ICC freezes Canada Cricket’s funding due to governance failure
