In the grip of the Asian betting mafia
In The Daily Telegraph , Peter Foster looks at the bookmakers who still stalk cricket, seven years after the ICC set about rooting corruption out of the game.
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
In The Daily Telegraph, Peter Foster looks at the bookmakers who still stalk cricket, seven years after the ICC set about rooting corruption out of the game.
From the back-streets of Karachi and Mumbai to the gleaming towers of Hong Kong and Dubai, cricket's bookmaking underworld is still operating. Chief among those nations are the sub-continental rivals of India and Pakistan where, despite betting on cricket being illegal, millions of pounds regularly change hands over a single game. Annually, the profits can be counted in billions.
But the nature of gambling has changed, forced to adapt from the brash efforts to influence entire teams to a far more subtle approach.
It makes grim reading. In the same paper, Simon Hughes gives a first-hand report from the subcontinent.
On a trip to Pakistan some years ago, I stopped by an anonymous club match one afternoon. Two batsmen were slowly playing themselves in. After one apparently featureless over, a gaggle of spectators suddenly engaged in an unseemly scuffle. When some time had elapsed and peace was restored, I ventured over to investigate what had happened. It emerged that one man had bet another the over would be a maiden. When a leg-bye was run off the last ball of the over, they couldn't agree who had won the wager (despite the extra it still constituted a maiden) and fists flew.
Martin Williamson is executive editor of ESPNcricinfo and managing editor of ESPN Digital Media in Europe, the Middle East and Africa