BOMBAY, 16 September 2005 — The most despicable aspect of cricket, the match-fixing phenomenon, is rearing its ugly head again and how! The midnight visit of two sleuths of International Cricket Council’s Anti Corruption Unit (ACU) first to New Delhi and then to Bombay, all incognito, has left not only the Board of Control for Cricket in India officials, but also the country’s law-enforcing authorities flabbergasted. They hadn’t the faintest of clue of the strange visit.
It was only through the media that the BCCI president, Ranbir Sigh Mahendra, came to know of the visit. He had not been informed by the ICC and neither did the two men, who stealthily moved into a hotel three nights ago, did contact him. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the highest investigative agency in the country, was also unaware of the visit of the “guests” from ICC.
It may be recalled the it was the Delhi Police and the CBI that had helped the ICC in investigating the earlier incidents of match-fixing and betting, on the basis of which Hansie Cronje, the South African captain, the Indian skipper Mohammed Azharuddin and several others were banned from the game.
One is still not clear what the ICC sleuth’s main objective of the present visit is all about. It is being suspected that some matches in the recent tri-series in Zimbabwe, involving India and New Zealand and the hosts, were apparently “fixed.”. This cryptic statement by the BCCI president “They have not got in touch with us, so the question of our establishing contact with them, therefore, does not arise” must tell its own story. It also raises questions about the functioning of the ICC’s Anti Corruption Unit. Can they just enter any country without so much as even informing the law enforcing agencies and immediately try and contact the alleged bookmakers and the underworld for information? It is just not done, however grave the situation.
No one knew of the present visit until a report had appeared in a leading newspaper last Tuesday that said two ACU officials, Alan Peacock and Martin Hawkins, were in Delhi recently to probe allegations that the Zimbabwe tri-series was fixed. The BCCI president, reacting to this news item, said “In the past we have shown that we are the only cricket Board in the world which has taken action. However, till there is any substance or something credible, initiating any action is just out of question.” The CBI denied any contact with the two men in black from London. The Delhi Police, however, said that they were keeping a close watch on some marked bookmakers after the revelation that a highly rich dance bar girl had been deeply involved in laying bets in millions of rupees on cricket matches, including the Zimbabwe tri series and the “Ashes” Tests in England.
Was it really this aspect of the information that had brought the two ICC sleuths to India? Whatever it is, this visit becomes all too mysterious. No one is denying that heavy betting takes place almost everywhere where there is a following for international cricket. But to think that any aberration in the outcome of a match might be on account of match-fixing would be as naïve as to think that every player and every cricket-playing country is corrupt.
The Anti Corruption Unit was formed with a commitment of total cooperation of all the ICC members and the constant exchange of information is the basis of this co-operation. For just two officers to take shots in the dark and that too clandestinely will not serve the purpose of unitedly fighting this evil.
An even bigger question to ask is: “Why does the ICC always believe the evil of match-fixing takes place only on the sub-continent. There was nothing unusual about the results of the matches in the Zimbabwe tri-series. The results were according to the known form of the contestants. And where were the Anti Corruption Unit sleuths when something as strange as Australia losing to Bangladesh in a one-day match in England took place earlier this year ?
