Comments on fixing stories

Ever since the arrest of three Rajasthan Royals players early on Thursday morning, ESPNcricinfo has covered the story following a few guidelines: Accuracy, fairness, and mindful of libel laws.

This means that when we are reporting on the case itself, we report only what is officially disclosed. We feel we have managed that so far, despite obvious difficulties and disadvantages.

This policy has also been extended to our story comments - we are bound to follow the strict libel laws that exist not just in India but in various other countries including the UK and the US. It is standard practice for us to disable comments on sensitive stories - especially those that deal with corruption - to eliminate the risk of libelous comments being published.

We will enable comments on selected stories going forward but these comments will be subject to the same standards of scrutiny as any story on our site. We will not be publishing comments that make allegations, draw inferences, or impute anything beyond the facts and we will always, in this matter, err on the side of caution. We would ask you to comment on the merits of the story itself, not on the merits of the case or the investigation.