The battle against match-fixing in cricket looks to be far from won after the general manager of the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit revealed players were approached by fixers at last year’s World Cup.
Alex Marshall also told the Telegraph‘s Nick Hoult there are more than 50 live
investigations into alleged wrongdoing currently being undertaken in the sport:
“We have had a massive increase in intelligence over the last couple of years,” he said.
“Three years ago we might have received 200 pieces of information in a year, now we are getting more than 1000. We have now prosecuted a lot of the top corruptors in the world because we now have better intelligence.
“We are looking at between 40 and 50 live cases. It is quite consistent around those numbers now. We charged more people last year than ever before (12) and it will be similar next year.”
It correlates the amount of charges will increase as the ICC‘s ability to assess alleged breaches improves, though that could mean fans are exposed to more disappointment along the way.
Marshall made these comments shortly before the
20th anniversary of the fixed Centurion Test between South Africa and England
on January 14, 2000. Hansie Cronje—who was South Africa captain at the time—was
later revealed to have accepted a bribe before his side lost, uncovering a
trail of match-fixing dating back years.
The ICC’s ACU chief said those alleged fixers who made contact at last year’s World Cup were enquiring about future T20 events, adding: “As far as I know it looks as though the World Cup was clean.”
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