Plot to fix England Test match
Sri Lankan syndicate filmed agreeing to doctor pitch for crooked cricket bets
A PLOT to fix a forthcoming England cricket match has been exposed by an undercover investigation, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
Match fixers have been caught discussing plans to rig England’s first Test on their tour of Sri Lanka, scheduled to begin on November 6.
An undercover journalist, posing as a businessman looking to place bets on the match, filmed a match fixer and the groundsman of the stadium in Galle agreeing to help alter the outcome.
The “wicket fixing” plot involves doctoring the pitch to make it impossible for the contest to end in a draw. Such tactics would allow those involved to profit dishonestly from placing bets against that outcome with unsuspecting bookmakers.
Betting is a huge industry in the subcontinent, with a market estimated to be worth £45billion in India despite being illegal. It has long been customary for pitches to favour the home team, but the claims that some are being doctored to fix matches for betting fraud will shock many in cricket.
The match-fixing allegations come from a documentary entitled Cricket’s Match-fixers, to be broadcast by Al Jazeera tomorrow night.
The programme will put pressure on England to cancel their tour unless the integrity of the series can be safeguarded. The International Cricket Council, the sport’s world governing body, has opened an investigation. Alex Marshall, head of the ICC’S Anticorruption Unit said: “We will take the contents of the programme and any allegations it may make very seriously.”
An England & Wales Cricket Board spokesman said: “ECB are aware of the planned Al Jazeera documentary, though not the full content. We endorse the ICC’S position and fully support their work and investigations.”
England are currently playing Pakistan at Lord’s, the setting eight years ago for one of sport’s biggest fixing scams, when three Pakistan players were jailed for agreeing to take bribes to bowl no-balls.
The Sri Lanka Test ploy would not require any player to cheat. Instead, it would rely on ground staff producing a pitch on which the ball bounces so unpredictably the game could not last the full five days, as batsmen would find it harder not to lose their wickets.
The footage features Robin Morris, a former professional cricketer from Mumbai, India; Tharindu Mendis, a player from Colombo; and Tharanga Indika, an assistant manager at Galle International Stadium. They are shown discussing doctoring pitches with an undercover reporter. Asked when the next such fix would be carried out, Morris replies: “England v Sri Lanka.”
Asked if he could fix the surface so a draw would be impossible, Indika replies: “Yes, I can. I can confirm it in advance one week before.”
Morris, who allegedly asks for 30 per cent of the reporter’s winnings on a bet, says Indika had already doctored the wicket for the most recent Test played at Galle last July, between Sri Lanka and India. Morris denies any wrongdoing, and Indika denies any involvement in pitch-fixing. Mendis did not respond to requests for comment.
HE WILL not bowl a ball or face one with the bat when England’s cricketers play their first Test against Sri Lanka later this year.
But Tharanga Indika has the power to destroy the integrity of their entire tour before a single shot is played.
The senior groundsman claims to be able to produce a pitch that would influence the outcome of the game – making it impossible for the match, at Galle, to end in a draw.
It is no idle boast, according to an undercover investigation that has exposed a form of match-fixing arguably even more devious than those that have come before.
Footage secretly filmed by Al Jazeera’s investigative unit as part of a programme that will be broadcast tomorrow night shows Indika discussing what is described as pitch-fixing with two men who say Indika will help them execute such a scam.
One of them, Robin Morris, is reclining on a hotel bed like a Roman emperor as he lays out the plot, casually picking at his exposed feet as he announces his next target is the England-Sri Lanka game.
Perched just in front of him on the right edge of the bed is Tharindu Mendis, who corroborates the existence of a plan to corrupt England’s next overseas tour.
Indika, the assistant manager at Galle International Stadium, is not in the room, having left abruptly.
“He is very, very scared,” Morris tells the undercover reporter before calling the groundsman to reassure him, saying: “If you’re in trouble, I’m also in trouble, so I will make sure I will not give myself a problem.”
Doctoring the pitch to all but guarantee the England match does not end in a draw would allow anyone involved in such a scheme to profit dishonestly from placing bets with unsuspecting bookmakers.
In an earlier secretly filmed meeting, Morris says he pays groundsmen 25 lakh Indian rupees (£27,400) to doctor the pitch for one Test, the equivalent of eight years’ salary.
Morris, alleged to have asked for 30 per cent of the undercover reporter’s winnings in exchange for information about matches where he controls the result, adds: “Money is in your pocket in four days.”
At the meeting with Indika, Morris says: “What happens is he – we – can make a pitch to do whatever we want it to do. Because he’s the main curator. He is the assistant manager and curator of the Galle stadium.”
Sitting on the opposite side of the bed to Mendis, Indika adds: “Yes, if you want a pitch for spin bowling, or pace bowling, or batting, that can be done.”
Asked how he prepares a surface – also known as a wicket – for bowlers, he replies: “We leave the wicket uncovered for about two weeks, don’t water it, and this will cause damage to the wicket.”
Mendis, who leads the discussion, implies Indika is prepared to defy orders from above about the kind of pitch that should be produced.
“They will ask him, OK, keep some grasses, like one inch. He will cut all the grass.”
He adds: “Normally, they are asking to put water for, like, half an hour. So he will put only for 15 minutes. Then they will ask to roll it for, like, half an hour, but he will roll it for only 15 minutes, right? From there they will make it turn, start turning.”
A pitch that “turns” – one where the ball moves laterally when it bounces – is the hardest surface in cricket to bat on. The harder the pitch is to bat on, the more likely it is a Test match will be low-scoring and finish sooner. Mendis says: “Before the match you have to do that, because after the match is going on you can’t do anything, because those guys are also there.”
Those “guys” are inspectors from the International Cricket Council, the sport’s world governing body, who check pitches have been properly prepared. But Mendis claims there are techniques even the inspectors cannot detect.
“One thing he can do during the match is the brush thing,” he says, referring to a method of damaging the pitch with a brush.
Morris adds: “You just do it slowly. What they do then is press it inward.”
When Indika suddenly leaves the room, Morris says it is because someone else at the ground “got caught doing this”.
He adds: “Someone trapped him and he was thrown out.”
Indika is eventually tracked down to the venue of a wedding in Galle.
When the subject of ensuring the Sri Lanka v England Test would be finished inside four days is raised, he says, laughing: “I can do it in two-and-half.”
At an earlier meeting, Morris claims Indika has already carried out a fix for the most recent Test played at Galle in July between Sri Lanka and India.
Indika later adds of the match, which the tourists won by 304 runs inside four days after posting a massive 610 runs in their first innings: “India was set for a batting wicket. Our guys didn’t play well.” Doctoring a pitch in that way would allow a fixer to bet dishonestly on a team scoring unexpectedly heavily when batting first.
Morris denies any wrongdoing. He says Al Jazeera invited him to audition for, and act in, a commercial movie “for public entertainment”.
Indika denies any involvement in pitch-fixing, saying any conversations he had with journalists were to show courtesy to foreign tourists.
Mendis did not respond to requests for comment.
‘Normally, they are asking to put water for, like, half an hour. So he will put only for 15 minutes’
‘What happens is he – we – can make a pitch to do whatever we want it to do. Because he’s the main curator’
‘As you would expect, we will take the contents of the programme and any allegations it may make very seriously’
The general manager of the Anticorruption Unit of the sport’s world governing body, the International Cricket Council, announced earlier this week he had already opened an investigation in anticipation of tomorrow’s documentary.
Alex Marshall added: “As you would expect, we will take the contents of the programme and any allegations it may make very seriously.”
An England & Wales Cricket Board spokesman said last night: “ECB are aware of the planned Al Jazeera documentary, though not the full content.
“We endorse the ICC’S position and fully support their work and investigations.”