Fixers keep ICC on tenterhooks, seven cases being probed
MUMBAI: The demon of match fixing is rearing its ugly head again. However, this time the International Cricket Council (ICC) has detected the threats well in advance.
According to a report published in The Guardian, the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has initiated as many as seven investigations into match-fixing after three international captains reported approaches by bookies in the past two months.
Pakistan skipper Sarfraz Ahmed and Zimbabwe’s captain Graeme Cremer made the concerned authorities aware about the approaches made to them by intermediaries within an hour. The name of the third skipper who was approached is yet to be known as the ICC is not willing to share any further details on the matter.
The reporting of such cases to the ICC is a positive and the game’s world governing body will take heart from the fact that their players’ education programme organised by the Anti-corruption Unit is working to a certain extent. Justice Mukul Mudgal, who investigated the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal, had told Hindustan Times a couple of weeks back that the only tool with the otherwise ‘toothless’ ACU is its players’ education programme.
Sarfraz, under whose leadership Pakistan clinched the title of the ICC Champions Trophy in June earlier this year, admitted to have been contacted by a bookie in the run up to an ODI match against Sri Lanka in October. The wicketkeeper captain turned down the offer immediately. Pakistan is still trying to come out of the PSL fixing scandal which has already seen quite a few players, including Sharjeel Khan and Khalid Latif banned.
Cremer, on the other hand, claimed to have declined an offer from a former Zimbabwe cricket board member to fix his team’s Test against the West Indies in the same month.
There are also reports of match-fixers taking interest in women’s cricket along with cricketers from under-17 and under-19 levels. The age group cricketers in particular are on the radar of fixers as they want to catch and keep exploiting them.