Gray re-affirms progress in match-fixing clean-out

Malcolm Gray, president of the International Cricket Council, issued a world-wide warning to world cricket today - the match-fixing scandals and problems must be buried by the time of the 2003 World Cup in South Africa.

At the official launch in Auckland of the 16-team ICC Under-19 World Cup tournament which will be staged in New Zealand in January-February, Gray was asked at a press conference whether there was any hope of burying anti-corruption campaign by early 2003.

"We have simply got to have an end to it by then," said Gray. "If we don't settle the business over the next 15 months it might be too late to stop it.

"All the work that has been done recently may have suppressed match-fixing and similar corruption," said Gray, "but we can't guarantee that we have eradicated it."

Gray said that world cricket would have to accept that whenever a One-Day International cricket match was being played anywhere in the world these days approximately half a billion New Zealand dollars would be bet on the game.

"In a bigger game, such as World Cup, you could probably double that amount."

Gray said ICC had acted strongly against corruption in the game, helped by the recent Code of Conduct, and by the Anti-Corruption Unit headed by Lord Condon.

"There has been an enormous amount of work done, and some of it cannot really be made public.

"The Condon report gave 24 recommendations, and meetings of the ICC executive and cricket committees have adopted those recommendations and put in place extra strategies.

"These included such matters as banning mobile phones on tour, installing video cameras in tour hotel lobbies, the appointing of five fulltime security experts to protect the integrity of tours in the five international areas," said Gray.

"Some people say these moves are draconian, an invasion of privacy. That is not true. They are a necessary part of the campaign."

Gray said another part of the anti-corruption campaign was the education of younger players, including a video which is being prepared pointing out the traps, and indicating how a player who might be regarded as a new Don Bradman could have his career ruined.

Gray also countered queries about the selection of eight umpires to stand in all future Test matches, with no home umpires involved. The eight elite umpires would be backed by a 25-member panel of emerging umpires, who could be used as third or television umpires in Test matches, and might even stand in Tests. "Our cricketers are full-time professionals, our administration is becoming more professional, and now we are moving the umpires into the professional system," said Gray.

No home umpires would stand in Tests, but Gray did not regard the standard of umpiring as being of concern.

"Really I think our umpires do a pretty damn good job. They have to make decisions, sometimes in trying conditions, in real time without the benefit of 10 slow-motion replays."

Gray could not forecast whether more television technology would come into Test-match umpiring.

"The ICC cricket committee, comprising famous former Test players, waxes and wanes on the matter. At a meeting in May they might decide that more technology would be a help.

"At a meeting in September they are likely to have the opposite opinion."