A scandal that will not go away

The match fixing scandal just will not go away. Even as the cricket authorities in various countries are taking steps - even to the extent of organising probes by leading investigating agencies - to combat the menace, it rears its ugly head again. Even as the scandal seems to be under control in one cricketing area, there are reports of match fixing involving players in another.

Now the match fixing scandal seems to have taken a new twist with claims that West Indian cricketers have been named in a report by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in India. According to London's Sunday Telegraph, there is a chapter in the probe on non-Indian players. This chapter is said to mention two senior West Indian players as well as three Australians.

The references to the West Indians revolve around an extraordinary match during the 1996 World Cup when supposed no-hopers Kenya convincingly beat West Indies by 73 runs. Wisden had described the match as "one of the biggest upsets in cricket history". Kenya were dismissed for a low score of 166 before bowling out West Indies for just 93 in a mere 35.2 overs.

There were strong allegations at the time that the West Indies had thrown the match. And it was reported that after the match there was a row in the West Indies dressing room after a senior West Indian player had been seen congratulating the Kenyans. Certainly the last has not been heard on the subject.

The report is also said to have linked unnamed Australian cricketers with the match fixing scandal. But the Australian Cricket Board said it would ignore the unsubstantiated report in an Indian newspaper. The report, published in an Indian daily, claims the Australians are named in a leaked copy of the CBI report. ACB chief executive Malcolm Speed however played the issue down when he said in Melbourne that no action would be taken unless something more substantial emerged. He said ICC's anti-corruption unit was carrying out its own investigations and he was happy to leave it there. "I have no reason to believe any serious allegations are made against Australian players," Speed said.

And in India, a visibly upset Sports Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said he would urge the government to investigate the publication of a leaked top-secret report on match-fixing by national cricketers. In an interview to a private television network late Saturday, Dhindsa said he would ask Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani to probe the `leak of the CBI report. "The home ministry can ask the CBI how the media got hold of the report," Dhindsa told the TV network after two newspapers on Saturday said the federal agency had named four top players as key match-fixers in India.

The 210-page CBI report is scheduled to be presented to the Sports Ministry on Tuesday or Wednesday and is likely to be unveiled in Parliament next month. Sports Ministry sources said Dhindsa was upset with Saturday's publication of what the newspapers claimed were parts of the CBI report. "Besides the minister being upset, there are a few red faces in the government over this leak," a highly-placed source said.

The CBI, however, described the media reports as "speculative." Be that as it may be, there is little doubt that despite the investigations into the scandal and whatever the evidence unearthed, the match fixing scandal is an issue that will continue to haunt the game.