ICC meets today to discuss match-fixing scandals

London, May 1: Recent history does not encourage excessive optimism that the International Cricket Council (ICC) will deal swiftly and effectively with the match-fixing scandal threatening the international game's credibility.

Cricket's international guardians start a two-day meeting at Lord's on Tuesday to decide their response to a host of match-fixing allegations, including South Africa captain Hansie Cronje's admission that he took up to $15,000 from a bookmaker.

Cronje and three of his team mates have also been charged by Indian police with involvement in match-fixing during a one-day series in March. The four deny the allegations.

The most damning indictment of the ICC's inaction in the biggest crisis to hit the main summer game of the British Commonwealth had been its decision to help cover up confessions from Australians Shane Warne and Mark Waugh that they took money from an Indian bookmaker to provide pitch and weather information during a 1994 tour of Sri Lanka.

In December 1998 the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) were forced to admit they had secretly fined the two Australians. The ICC said they had been informed and agreed to keep the affair under wraps.

On April 7 Delhi's Joint Commissioner of Police, K.K. Paul, charged Cronje, Herschelle Gibbs, Pieter Strydom and Nicky Boje with involvement in match-fixing. Four days later Cronje was sacked after saying he had not been entirely honest in his denials.

Bacher claims Cronje took money

United Cricket Board of South Africa managing director Ali Bacher told a news conference Cronje had accepted $10-15,000 from a local South African and an Indian bookmaker during a triangular series with Zimbabwe and England in March.

Cronje, who has since gone into hiding, admitted giving the information to the bookmaker but repeated his denials of match-fixing. Since Bacher's unexpected disclosure the allegations have come thick and fast.

Bacher, himself, in a statement seen by his detractors as an effort to deflect attention from South Africa, alleged two matches in last year's World Cup had been fixed, although he later back-tracked on his highly inflammatory claim.

Of more significance is a report by Pakistan judge Malik Qayyum into corruption in Pakistan cricket. Sympathy can not be entirely witheld from the ICC delegates who gather at cricket's spiritual home on Tuesday.

Newspapers throughout the British Commonwealth have published daily reports of alleged approaches by bookmakers but hard proof of match-fixing has been lacking.

The difficulty for the ICC will be to distinguish rumour from fact and, to this end, chief executive David Richards has floated the idea of an amnesty for players presenting evidence of corruption.

Anything would be better than the present corrosive climate of mistrust, innuendo and suspicion.-Reuters

Our London Correspondent adds: The Calcutta-based ICC President Jagmohan Dalmiya will preside over the meeting for which delegates from all the nine Test-playing countries have arrived.

Also here is former Indian cricket board chief I.S. Bindra, hoping that he will be invited by the ICC to reveal the information on match-fixing on his possession.

"I hope the ICC will give me the opportunity to present the information that I am privy to. But I am not sure they will invite me," Bindra told a local paper.

"If they don't, I will have to think about my next course of action."

Despite, making a similar offer to the Indian cricket board earlier, Bindra said he was not invited to its recent meeting at Calcutta.

It is understood that Bindra has also sent an application to ICC chief executive David Richards requesting the ICC to hear him.