Gray wishes he had caught more match-fixers

Malcolm Gray, the outgoing president of the International Cricket Council, has said that he wishes more culprits had been caught in the matchfixing controversy. In an interview to The Melbourne Age, he implied that some of the cricket boards were too keen to protect their national sporting heroes.

"One of the disappointments is that we didn't get more scalps," said Gray, "but it's probably understandable because we and the anti-corruption unit don't have any legislative power. We cannot march into somebody's house and carry out a search or we cannot arrest people so we can only do it by investigation and by persuasion."

"The other reason," he continued, "is that there is a tendency to want to protect the sporting hero, and that's [something] the fans, the public and I think some of the authorities tend to [do] as well."

It was an accusation that didn't go down well with the Indian board (BCCI). Kishore Rungta, treasurer of the BCCI, and Jaywant Lele, former secretary, said in Mid-day that the Indian board never tried to conceal the identity of any cricketers.

"I don't think the Indian cricket board, or any cricket board for that matter, has tried to protect the identity of any cricketer who was involved in the match-fixing scandal."

Lele agreed: "The Indian board has brought to book all the culprits who were involved. I think Gray is just talking in the air, without any support or evidence to support his claims."

Gray, who has just handed over charge of the ICC to Pakistan's representative, Ehsan Mani, said that it was time to "draw a line in the sand" and move on. He did not think any more culprits would be uncovered.