Matchfixing malaise includes SA

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

The biggest matchfixing scandal to hit cricket since Hansie Cronje’s exposure as a crook involves SA, according to evidence Lou Vincent has given to the game’s anti-corruption police.

Former New Zealand batsman Vincent has reportedly told the International Cricket Council that matches in the Champions League T20 (CLT20) played in SA in October, 2012 were tainted by matchfixing. London’s Daily Telegraph writes that Vincent says he knows of dodgy dealings in at least five countries.

Besides New Zealand, Vincent has played for Auckland, English counties Suffolk, Northamptonshire, Sussex, Worcestershire and Lancashire, the Mid West Rhinos in Zimbabwe, and the Khulna Royal Bengals of the Bangladesh Premier League.

At the 2012 CLT20 he turned out for the Auckland Aces, who won both of their qualifying matches but just one of their four group games.

“I can’t say that anything struck me as strange,” Heath Streak, who served as Auckland’s bowling coach in the competition, said yesterday. “I can’t think of anything suspicious that happened in that tournament.”

Unprompted, Streak recalled Auckland’s match against the Perth Scorchers at Centurion on October 23. Chasing 141, Auckland reached 61/1 before losing seven wickets for 48 runs in 53 deliveries and being beaten by 16 runs.

“That was a tight game and these things can happen - it wasn’t not believable,” Streak said.

Officials involved with securing the tournament, and who declined to talk on the record, said yesterday they had “heard nothing of the sort” when told of Vincent’s reported claims.

The burgeoning T20 format presents a particular challenge for anti-corruption officials because of its unpredictable nature.

It is also the focus of a significant chunk of the US$140-billion that the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) say is spent on sport betting annually in the world. As much as 80% of that figure is invested illegally, and Asia and Europe account for 85% of the dirty money. Cricket and football are matchfixers’ sports of choice, the ICSS say.

In England, players have been punished for accepting bribes to throw matches or under-perform since the early 19th century.

But it was only when, in 2000, Cronje, then SA’s respected captain, first vehemently denied and then reluctantly confessed that he had taken money from cricket’s underworld that the public gained an inkling into the size and the intricacies of the matchfixing malaise.

In November, 2011, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt were jailed in England after being found guilty of “conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments” for agreeing to bowl no-balls with specific deliveries during the Lord’s test between England and Pakistan in August, 2010.

Streak, a former Zimbabwe captain, also had a successful county career with Warwickshire and Hampshire - and a brush with a bookmaker.

“Once in the UK I received a phone call from someone asking me if I would be prepared to talk to him and saying it would be beneficial to me,” Streak said. “I realised it was a dodgy situation and I put down the phone and told my manager.

“That was long before matchfixing hit the headlines and before the Hansie scandal. But when you hear and read about these things, you start to wonder.

“For instance, was Zimbabwe’s victory over SA in the 1999 World Cup legitimate? As Zimbabwe, we were always expected to lose. So if anyone was taking a bribe it was going to be the opposition.”

Having reeled off four wins and reached the semi-finals, SA crashed to 185 all out in pursuit of the 234 they needed to beat Zimbabwe at Chelmsford in their last group game.

Zimbabwe’s 48-run win is one of only two successes in their 31 completed one-day internationals against SA.

Cronje captained SA in that match.