ICC’s war to keep the sport clean continues
MUSHROOMING OF T20 LEAGUES AROUND THE WORLD KEEPS GAME’S GOVERNING BODY ON TENTERHOOKS
The disclosure by International Cricket Council (ICC) about the number of investigations launched in the last 12 months — in an effort to keep the game clean — is sure to polarise opinions about its degree of success.
A figure of 32 cases in a year, including eight players as suspects, may not seem to be a bad number by itself, but ICC’s limitations in handling the menace for almost 25 years has still not found an answer. The “explosion of T20 tournaments,” according to Alex Marshall, general manager of ICC Anti-Corruption Unit, is a soft target for the corruptors of the game — but the proliferation of these franchise leagues has swamped the game over the last decade.
Marshall, during his joint press conference with ICC CEO Dave Richardson and Geoff Allardice, general manager of Cricket Operations, here yesterday, was particularly severe on the T20 leagues, though the governing body seemed to be ambivalent about its stance towards these mushrooming tournaments.
“I know a lot of bookmakers like T20s, but I don’t think it’s correct to say that increasing the number of T20 matches will lead to an increase of the risk,” Richardson said.
A look at the proliferation of T20 leagues will tell you its own story. When the Indian Premier League (IPL) was launched in 2008, the only other ongoing league was the Big Bash in Australia. Today, there are at least eight with varying degrees of success in India, Pakistan, Australia, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Canada and Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan Premier League got the nod only this year, while there are new ones on the anvil like UAE T20 as well as the T10 tournament — which is in its second year.
Marshall went on explain the dangers that lurk around T20 tournaments. “The corruptors love the explosion of T20 tournaments. They have suddenly given them a host of new opportunities to try and influence these events,” he said.
Marshall said that corruptors were also looking for new opportunities like under-19 and women’s cricket. He revealed that the corruptors were even designing their own tournaments, like it had happened in Ajman.
The murmur of corruption in the game had been dormant for a while until Al Jazeera came up with some startling disclosures a few months back. “The Times of India and the Sun did sting operations and they shared the contents with us, but Al Jazeera did not. We need proof to substantiate their claims,” he said.
32 cases in a year may not seem to be a bad number, but ICC’s limitations in handling the menace has still not found an answer.
32 cases of corruption detected in a year
2000 year when Delhi Police reported the first case
I know a lot of bookmakers like T20s, but I don’t think it’s correct to say that increasing the number of T20s will increase the risk.”
Dave Richardson » ICC CEO
‘Anti-corruption education’
Elaborating on their modus operandi about preventing players from getting trapped by these corruptors, the official said: “The coaches, the curators, the administrators, senior officials — they all need to get anti-corruption education. So we are changing the education pattern.”
“We want to make the whole game resistant to these people who want to poison it. For those outside the game, make everything possible within the law to disrupt their activities to keep the game right,” he added.
The ICC remains on tenterhooks as to where the next episode of corruption in the sport will rear it’s ugly head. Even with the Asia Cup on, there have been media reports of Afghanistan’s wicketkeeper Mohammad Shehzad — the centurion against India yesterday — being approached by a bookie to influence the Afghanistan Premier League scheduled next month. Confirming the approach, an ICC official said: “There was an approach made during the Asia Cup, but for their own [Afghanistan’s] T20 league. The matter was reported through the right channels on Saturday and is being looked into by the anti-corruption unit.”