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Canadian cricket has been rocked by allegations that run from threats, selection pressure to match fixing, with the Lawrence Bishnoi gang at the centre of a CBC investigation.Dilpreet Bajwa, who led the Canadian team in the recently held ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, is under scrutiny after a match-fixing case linked to him in a Canada vs New Zealand match during the tournament.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!A report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada’s public broadcaster, says Bajwa may have links with jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi’s network and could have been influenced to fix matches for the Bishnoi group.The CBC report also states that the Bishnoi gang may have played a role in Bajwa’s rise in Canadian cricket. The same gang has been accused of the killing of singer Sidhu Moose Wala, the murder of politician Baba Siddique, and threats to Bollywood actor Salman Khan.The restaurant threat“Last July (2025), around 25 cricketers, fresh off a win at a major provincial tournament, gathered at a restaurant in Surrey, British Columbia. Two players from the tournament made their way from the outside patio to a table inside, where a star on Canada’s national men’s team was having dinner with another group. According to sources, they claimed they represented the Bishnoi gang — a violent criminal group designated a terrorist entity in Canada. They told the star that if he didn’t support the rise of a young player named Dilpreet Bajwa and another player on the men’s provincial team and the national team, he and his family would face consequences,” the CBC report says.The national player who was threatened then spoke to a person who was named Noah by the CBC about the incident at the restaurant. Noah, like the national player, also received death threats.Bajwa, then 22, was appointed captain three weeks before the T20 World Cup began in February this year. The alleged fixing incident involved the fifth over of New Zealand’s chase vs Canada in the T20 World Cup, when the captain Dilpreet Bajwa came on to bowl.He is mainly a batting allrounder who bowls offspin. He came on to bowl with New Zealand at 35 for 2. He started with a no-ball, bowled a wide down the leg side, and conceded 15 runs in that over.Restaurant threat part of broader trendThe CBC report says these threats such as at the restaurant are part of what it describes as a pattern of intimidation within Canadian cricket, involving people who claim links to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang. It says such groups appear to be trying to place cricket administrators and players in specific positions.According to sources quoted by CBC, the intimidation cases are being reported in British Columbia and are linked to individuals associated with Arvinder Khosa, head of Cricket BC and recently elected president of Cricket Canada.The report says multiple sources believe the threats are linked to Khosa because of his association with players (who threatened the national player at a restaurant) involved in the incident. Khosa said he did not know the full details of what happened at the restaurant, but later held a call with the players involved along with then Cricket Canada president Amjad Bajwa. When asked by CBC, Amjad Bajwa, who is not related to Dilpreet Bajwa, denied knowledge of the threats.People who were allegedly threatened said the aim of the intimidation was to secure Bajwa’s position as captain of the Canada national team.Khosa’s influence on the riseThe CBC report claims that while Khosa may have just recently become president of Cricket Canada, his influence appears to be on key decisions, including Dilpreet Bajwa’s rise to captaincy.Soon after the restaurant incident, Khosa reportedly overruled selectors and board decisions to appoint Bajwa as captain of a provincial team, even though another player had been chosen by the selectors.“I opposed it and within 30 minutes or 40 minutes, I got another message from the same number and that terrified me because it was a picture,” said Noah, as quoted in the CBC report.A source close to Cricket Canada also cited as saying by the CBC that Khosa, now the president of Canada Cricket, was part of a group that put Bajwa’s name forward for the national team and that Khosa told Bajwa that he owed Khosa for his place on the team.“I personally feel they wanted to fix the games, make money out of it. That’s why they knew they can use him,” said Noah, referring to those claiming to be from the Bishnoi gang.“What other reasons can there be that they can go to an extent to make him captain for a Canadian team?”A phone recording alleging spot-fixing emergesThe report also mentions a phone recording from May last year in which former Canada coach Khurram Chohan was allegedly asked to fix parts of matches by then Cricket Canada president Amjad Bajwa, CEO Salman Khan, and board member Rana Imran.Chohan claimed he was given a specific team and batting order to follow before a game against Bermuda in 2025, but did not follow the instructions. He said that he later received a phone call from Salman angrily asking him, “What have you done?”Chohan was removed from his position in July, around a month after the recording surfaced.
