Cricket has a history of being blind to corruption

As details emerge of former New Zealand player Lou Vincent's plea bargain and confession of fixing, the thought keeps recurring that the officials don't take the issue of corruption seriously enough.

Four years ago a frustrated Shane Watson blurted out his lament: "Maybe they [ICC] don't want to get to the bottom of it [fixing] because it might run too deep."

If you think Watson was being overly sceptical, I've put together a tell-tale list.

The Australian Cricket Board covered up details when Mark Waugh and Shane Warne took money from a bookie for pitch and weather information back in 1995.

In the late nineties, there were whispers of shady characters hanging around the Indian dressing room during Sharjah matches. Not long afterwards captain Mohammad Azharuddin and batsman Ajay Jadeja were banned for their involvement in fixing.

Following those bans there were strong rumours circulating that further investigations had been halted because officials were worried the Indian team would be decimated. I confess to wondering at the time - just like Watson did years later - if the abandonment had something to do with the depth of the corruption.

There was the thorough and illuminating report of Justice Qayyum into the Salim Malik affair and other fixing controversies in Pakistan cricket. Despite the judge's hard-hitting summary, that report has largely been ignored by officials. And it's not only Pakistan officials who failed to take notice. Read Qayyum's report and take note of the names of some international coaches who have been appointed and interviewed for jobs in recent years. Then look at some of the recent ICC Hall of Fame inductees. It's illuminating.

Then came the Hansie Cronje affair. While Cronje was banished in disgrace, the fall-out didn't stop there. Two players, Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams, received six-month bans, but the former returned to international cricket and enjoyed a successful career. Other members of Cronje's team who attended the infamous meeting to decide if a game "should be fixed" have gone on to have careers in and around cricket.

There's the not-so-small matter of Bob Woolmer's suspicious death. The coach of South Africa during Cronje's discredited reign and then in charge of Pakistan during a limp 2007 World Cup campaign, Woolmer died in Jamaica in very strange circumstances. I don't mean to suggest Woolmer was involved in any scandal, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was about to reveal some misgivings. I do doubt his death was due to natural causes.

With controversy raging over fixing in cricket, the ICC had an executive member who was president of his country's board while he was a bookmaker. Surely, given the prevailing atmosphere and the need to send a strong message to the crooks, this was at best a misjudgement.

Another misjudgement involved England's unusually cosy reception and acceptance of substantial funding from later-convicted fraudster, Allen Stanford. The man photographed welcoming Stanford's helicopter at Lord's was Giles Clarke, chairman of the ECB. Recently Clarke was a major player in the revamping of the ICC, which substantially raised the profile of the big three - India, Australia and England.

While Clarke's involvement with Stanford was purely a failure to do proper diligence, another member of the big three, N Srinivasan, has been stripped of his BCCI presidency by the Indian Supreme Court. However, the court's concern over Srinivasan's involvement (or otherwise) in the Chennai Super Kings scandal isn't shared by the ICC, which has him listed as the incoming president.

Given the damning information overheard in cricket corridors - even without cocking an ear - and Ed Hawkins' informative book, Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy, the officials are hard-pressed to claim lack of available information as a defence.

Many of Vincent's allegations involve T20 matches, which should concern administrators considering the high value placed on that format to fortify the game's financial future.

The officials erred by not adopting a zero-tolerance policy against corruption from the outset. Despite many dire warnings since, they still haven't elevated their sights.