THIS IS HOW CLOSE A ‘FIXER’ CAN GET TO THE ENGLAND TEAM
Cricket stars are warned that the ‘fan’ in the hotel lobby could be a match-fixer
The photograph of alleged match-fixer Aneel Munawar standing only yards from former england cricketers Graeme Swann and Tim Bresnan in a Sri Lankan hotel lobby is an eerie reminder of the characters who move daily within the orbits of international players.
There is no suggestion that Swann or Bresnan have done anything wrong. They are minding their own business and doing what international cricketers do to punctuate the monotony of non-match days on tour — they sit around and chew the cud.
Sometimes, if a trip outside requires the presence of a security officer — as it increasingly does in some parts of the world — the hotel lobby may seem preferable to the claustrophobia of your room. You may get pestered for a selfie, but it beats staring at the wall.
And so accidental proximity to shady figures can be a hazard of the job. Bookmaking is illegal in the subcontinent, which is why Mumbai’s notorious crime syndicate D-Company, of which Munawar is allegedly a member, are so interested in it.
Indeed, Sportsmail has seen another photo of Munawar, who was filmed during Al Jazeera’s documentary Cricket’s Match
Fixers explaining to an undercover reporter how he manipulates games, sitting near a prominent West Indies cricketer in a hotel lobby in Colombo. Again, there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of the player. Both that photo and the one including Swann and Bresnan were taken during the 2012 World Twenty20. They were taken by an undercover investigator looking into spot-betting and attempts to compromise players.
The point is that, for all the work done by the ICC’s anti-corruption unit (ACU) since it was set up in 2000 in response to the hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal, it is hard to monitor every cough and splutter — especially in the lobbies of Asian hotels, where fans gather en masse in search of a brush with the stars. For match-fixers happy to melt into the crowd as they go about their business, casually approaching a player to gauge his or her vulnerability to corruption, the lobby is nothing less than a place of work.
Things are not quite as easy as they were in the days before the ACU. Nowadays, that gentleman you keep seeing in the corner of the lobby, perched in an armchair paying lip service to his newspaper, may be a plainclothes policeman or an anti- corruption officer. he monitors everyone who enters and leaves. Some of the faces he sees will be worryingly familiar.
And they take their jobs seriously. Two years ago in Mumbai, where I was staying in the same hotel as the India and england teams, the lift refused to stop at my floor. I went down a floor and took the stairs — only to encounter another problem once I reached the top. The emergency exit wouldn’t open. Through its small window, I could see a man on the other side. I tapped on the window and he opened the door. But instead of stepping aside to let me access my room, he asked who I was and why I was there. I asked why he needed to know.
‘Anti-corruption,’ he said, flashing his ID. Only once I’d shown him my room key and told him my room number did he let me through.
At the Pakistan Super League in Dubai earlier in the year, tournament organisers went to the lengths of issuing every player with a special SIM card so they could monitor calls.
And as recently as last week, two
Pakistan players — Babar Azam and Asad Shafiq — were reminded by anti- corruption officials that they weren’t allowed to wear smart watches during a Test match. After all, internet access could mean communication with bookies — though not in this instance.
It is a world in which no one can afford to trust anyone — and in which no player can afford to let his guard down.
Back in 2013, the Kent allrounder Darren Stevens embarked on what he described as ‘two years of hell’ after he failed to report a suspicious approach during a stint in the Twenty20 Bangladesh Premier League.
The approach was not of the traditional kind. Stevens had been asked to captain Dhaka Gladiators against Chittagong, but was told by the team owner that the on-field control would stay in the hands of Mohammad Ashraful. Unbeknown to Stevens, the ruse was part of a wider scam.
He was eventually found not guilty — but the anecdote was chilling proof that the unwary player can easily be used as a pawn.
Bresnan and Swann were approached by Sportsmail about the picture but both declined to comment.
About a decade ago, cricket believed it was getting to grips with the cheats. Then along came a host of Twenty20 franchise tournaments, not all of them with stringent anti- corruption measures. Now, it’s hard to know what to believe.
One message, though, has been drummed into the players: trust no one, report everything. That friendly fan who accosts you between the hotel entrance and the lifts may be after more than a selfie.