Cricket Fixing: Damage Is Done

Accusations of match-fixing in cricket still have the power to shock. The game's biggest concern right now is that pretty soon, they no longer will.

 

Former IPLIndian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi.

Part of the shock derives from the fact that these allegations often come out of left field, arriving suddenly and unexpectedly in the form of a court case. Such is the case with the libel action currently taking place in Britain's High Court, involving former New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns and the ever-colorful former Indian Premier League Commissioner Lalit Modi.
The case refers to a post made on Twitter in which Modi alleged that Cairns had his contract to play for Chandigarh Lions in the Indian Cricket League (a now-defunct rival league to the IPL) terminated in 2008 because of his involvement in match-fixing. In response, Cairns denied the accusation vigorously, saying that he was in fact fired because of his failure to disclose an ankle injury, contrary to the terms of his contract. Modi effectively replied "so sue me"—and Cairns promptly did.
Modi's legal team has summoned some of Cairns's former teammates, who have testified that he offered them money to underperform. Andrew Caldecott, a lawyer for Cairns, said that the New Zealander is being made a scapegoat for the misdeeds of his former colleagues. In other words, both legal teams are arguing that there was corruption, they just disagree about who was responsible.
As if that weren't enough, the Sunday Times of London this month quoted unidentified Indian bookmakers allegedly claiming that they could fix and had fixed a variety of international and domestic matches, including one in the knockout rounds of the 2011 Cricket World Cup. The bookmakers said that they had worked in cahoots with players from most of the Test-playing nations, that English county cricket is increasingly fertile territory for corruption because of the low level of official scrutiny, and that Bollywood actresses are used to entrap players into fixing.
The International Cricket Council denied a report that it was investigating any World Cup games and called the allegations "baseless and misleading." In response to claims that unidentified players from New Zealand were open to corruption, New Zealand Cricket Chief Executive David White issued a statement strongly rejecting the reports. "We have complete confidence that the claims made are baseless and have no credibility," the statement said.

Former New Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns, left, with wife Melanie Croser return to the High Court in London.

The bookmakers' claims are all nonspecific and unsubstantiated. Moreover, many of them sound like exactly the sort of thing you'd expect a bookie to say, whether true or not: the Bollywood actress business, in particular, sounds like the product of an overheated imagination. But then, Mazhar Majeed's claims to undercover reporters from the now-defunct British tabloid News of the World paper about Pakistan players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir's involvement in spot-fixing would have sounded pretty preposterous, if they hadn't turned out to be true.
The trio's conviction in November was followed in January by that of England's Mervyn Westfield, a former Essex seam bowler, who accepted £6,000, about US$9,500, to underperform in a domestic limited-overs game against Durham in 2009.
That dispelled any lingering, misplaced notions that fixing isn't a problem in England because no English player had previously been convicted of it. It also highlighted that county cricket does indeed look like ideal ground for would-be fixers: Much of it is televised, corrupting a modestly remunerated county pro would cost a lot less than corrupting a highly paid international star, and Westfield underperformed in a competition, the Pro40, that is played over 40 overs per side, unlike any other form of professional cricket—which makes it conceivable that players could treat it less seriously as a result. Nonserious cricket is public enemy No. 1 where corruption is concerned: The ICL was a largely inconsequential competition, rendered even less significant when the IPL launched.
The saddest development is that these days, it almost doesn't matter if fixing allegations are true or not. The damage is done: Every accusation seems plausible now, every unusual result or uncharacteristic performance could attract suspicion. We're going to see a lot more fingers pointed, and could easily see them pointed unfairly and careers wrongly ruined as a result.
The massive size of the largely illegal cricket gambling market makes it inevitable that bookmakers will try to fix matches, so the only way to stop it happening is to protect, educate, cajole and incentivize the players in whatever ways are most effective. The authorities, led by the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit, have put measures in place, including quarantining players from outside influences while they're playing, and encouraging them to report any fixing approaches they receive.
The problem is that when those approaches come from another player, as they're alleged to have done in both the Cairns and Westfield cases, they can be easily laughed off or dismissed as idle talk—and even when they're not, it takes a brave player to embark on a course of action that could end with one of their own teammates going to prison.
You could argue that the Westfield case, which was brought to light through a tip from former Essex teammate Tony Palladino, augurs well in that regard. But it took several months for it to be reported, despite plenty of other players having been approached, and the accuser has since had to move to another county—so mixed blessings, at best.
One of the ironies of the Cairns case is the identity of the accused: Modi, who—as the architect of the IPL—has done more than anyone else to usher in cricket's hyper-commercial mind-set, in which everything has a value and everyone is aware of theirs. From there, it's only a small step to everyone having a price. In the post-IPL era, it could be quite a challenge for the authorities to uproot any culture of ruthless and cynical money-making that might have risen in the game. It is important that they do so.