Boom in T20 raises corruption fears

CRICKET needs to improve its policing of Twenty20 franchise leagues if it is to stay on top of the battle against corruption, the boss of the international players’ union has warned.

The call for greater vigilance comes at a delicate time for the sport, with top players increasingly tempted by big-money Twenty20 deals, Australia’s cricketers locked in a long-running contracts dispute with their own board, and the Test format struggling for relevance outside of the Ashes.

But while Tony Irish, executive chairman of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations, believes the game’s authorities have got to grips with fixing at international level, he is concerned by differing standards of anti-corruption infrastructure in the new domestic leagues.

‘The traditional market is pretty well regulated,’ he told the Mail on Sunday. ‘But the new league market is pretty unregulated, and that includes corruption. Players are moving all over the place, and there are varying degrees of how corruption is dealt with in different countries. All the leagues have anticorruption codes, and that’s good. But there’s a lot more to dealing with corruption than a code. The education of players is fundamental to that. In some countries there’s no education.

‘Unfortunately these leagues are seen as different animals and not part of the overall structure.’

For all the money Twenty20 has brought into the game, barely a year has gone by without one of the leagues being beset by a corruption scandal. The Indian Premier League, the Bangladesh Premier League, South Africa’s Ram Slam Challenge and, this year, the Pakistan Super League have all been tarnished. In 2014, former New Zealand batsman Lou Vincent was banned for life after pleading guilty to 18 breaches of the ECB anti-corruption code, including in two county Twenty20 matches.