ICC Board meet gives free hand to anti-corruption unit

If it was cricket in between match-fixing allegations before, it's the other way around this week. After witnessing some good cricket in the ICC KnockOut Trophy at Nairobi, the International Cricket Council's (ICC) board members sat for a two-day meeting at the Kenyan capital from Monday.

An important decision on match-fixing was made during the course of the meeting with the ICC's anti-corruption wing being given a free hand to go ahead with the inquiries on the scandal and bribery. Sir Paul Condon, head of the ICC anti-corruption unit said on Monday that "The newly-established ICC anti-coruption unit will not interfere with the match-fixing and bribery inquiries set up by its affiliates against cricket players and officials." He added "We will be supporting the criminal and judicial inquiries and also conduct our inquiries."

A former police commissioner, Condon said he had accepted to lead the fight against corruption in cricket after the board gave its total support to the unit, which will receive four million dollars in funding, over the next year. He also said that the unit had assisted in the King Commission inquiry in South Africa and cooperated with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) inquiry which was looking into the allegations of match fixing in the 1999 World Cup matches.

Accepting that match-fixing was deep rooted in the game, Condon said "We will start our work, looking back at what has been happening and we will look forward. There have been huge opportunities to make money, not only in fixing matches but especially when there was no regulatory machine like we now have in place." The unit, which is operating from London, has three former British police officers in its five-member committee and will monitor activities in all the Test playing nations.

Meanwhile, former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram has come out in support of Hansie Cronje and felt that the former South African captain has been treated unfairly. Akram said ``Cronje is a brave man as he at least admitted that he did something wrong." Queried on the life ban imposed on Cronje, in comparison to the punishment meted out to Australia's Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, Akram said, ``If you see it as a comparison, then definitely it is unfair." Both Warne and Waugh were fined in 1995 for accepting money in reciprocation of providing pitch and weather information.

Dismissing the charge that frequent batting order changes constituted attempts at match fixing, Akram said "people should not read sudden changes in the batting order as attempts at match-fixing. We do that (change the order) very often in Pakistan and India."

Finally, with the interim report to be handed over to the Sports Ministry by the CBI this week, things are hotting up in the Indian scenario. The excellent performance by the side in the recently concluded tournament has certainly diverted the attention from matchfixing. Though things are progressing for the better, the game may not be the same if the report contains some names of players and officials. It may even affect the morale of the side for the forthcoming Sharjah tournament to start this week.