BOMBAY, 13 November 2004 — Four years on, the ghost of match-fixing is coming back to haunt international cricket. The worst stigma to hit the game may have been forgotten temporarily, but not wiped out completely as yet.

The first hint of the revival of the controversy came when the South African team’s tour of India was confirmed. Fears were raised to the effect that, if two of its players, Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje were among the visitors, then they would probably be called up for questioning by the Delhi Police, in connection with their alleged complicity with their late skipper Hansie Cronje.

And now New Zealand captain Stephen Flemming has revealed some of the dark events of the 1999 World Cup and the involvement of an Indian sports promoter who doubled as a bookmaker.

After the big blow-up in early 2000 when Hansie Cronje was tagged by an Indian bookmaker and the latter, in turn, named former Indian skipper Mohammed Azharuddin, a lot of activities were undertaken to investigate all the hoary details and also to take measures to prevent the players’ involvement in betting and suspected acts of match-fixing by lending their cooperation to bookmakers.

The International Cricket Council went to great lengths to establish a virtual police body called the Anti Corruption Unit, an ex-top officer of the Scotland Yard heading it.

Photographs of undesirable elements were pasted outside the dressing rooms at various match centers and detectives kept watch on the entry of people into the players’ enclosure. The use of mobile phones from inside the dressing rooms has been banned altogether. There is no doubt that these measures had a salutary effect in that the shady elements were kept out.

All this is fine as far as the control of the game under the aegis of the ICC is concerned. But there is absolutely no way that the ICC or any of the national cricket bodies can extend their jurisdiction beyond the stadia and the team hotels.

What happens hundreds of miles away is and cannot be their concern. How the betting takes place or information is exchanged is not something they can control. All this was accepted and yet the ICC did manage to create a cleaner image of the game all round. Several leading players were either banned for life or for stipulated periods.

Recently when former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin, who has a life ban on him , entered the media enclosure in Sri Lanka , the ICC pulled up the match-staging national board and ordered that such persons ought not to be given accreditation.

In this context, how much importance should be attached to the move of the Delhi Police to interrogate two South African players, Gibbs and Boje, who were suspected of having had links with some of the deals struck by the late Hansie Cronje ? The Indian Board was unable to give an assurance to its South African counterpart that the two players would be left alone by the law-enforcing authorities. Consequently, both these players have withdrawn from the Indian tour.

This may save both the visiting team as well as their hosts immediate embarrassment. But it does not solve the problem which is one of jurisdiction. It definitely suggests that tour agreements between two cricket-playing nations do not guarantee immunity to players from police investigation. Then, old wounds have been opened up with the New Zealand captain Flemming reiterating in his book certain charges that he had hurled at an Indian sports promoter, one Aushim Khetrapal, that the latter had offered him huge sums of money to help him in his plans to influence the outcome of matches.

This latest shocker is bound to lead to some past events to be dug up again. The very same charge had been made against the same person in 1999 by England all-rounder Chris Lewis. The past is bound to haunt the present. Fleming’s book is once again going to set off a chain reaction.

International cricket already burdened with several new problems, can certainly do without old controversies being served in new bottles.