Betting controversies in cricket

Cricket has had a number of controversies relating to players being involved with the betting aspects of the game. In particular, numerous players have been approached by bookmakers and bribed to, throw matches, aspects of matches (e.g. the toss) or provide other information.

1999-2000 India-South Africa match fixing scandal

In 2000, the Delhi police intercepted a conversation between a blacklisted bookie and the South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje in which they learnt that Cronje accepted money to throw matches. The South African government refused to allow any of its players to face the Indian investigation unit. A court of inquiry was set up and Cronje admitted to throwing matches. He was immediately banned from all cricket. He also named Saleem Malik (Pakistan), Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja (India). Jadeja was banned for 4 years. They too were banned from all cricket. As a kingpin, Cronje exposed the dark side of betting, however with his untimely death in 2002 most of his sources also have escaped law enforcement agencies. Two South African cricketers, Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje, were also listed as wanted by the Delhi police for their role in the match fixing saga.

But the fountainhead of the betting syndicates is Dawood Ibrahim’s D Company. "Many think that the bookies fix matches. That’s not true as punters in Dubai are the ones who call the shots," says a top Mumbai bookie. For any India-Pakistan clash, especially in Sharjah (the hub of match-fixing, say bookies), Dawood-controlled betting syndicates step in and Mumbai bookies, as an unwritten rule, lay off. And Dawood’s influence extends to players as well.

Other controversies

During the third Test of the 1981 Ashes series, Australian players Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh placed a bet on England to win the match after the odds had ballooned out to 500-1. Australia were widely expected to win the match with England at 7/135 after having been made to follow-on. In a remarkable rear-guard effort, England did indeed win the match following brilliant performances from Ian Botham and Bob Willis, and Lillee and Marsh duly collected ₤7,500. There has never been any suggestion that the players deliberately underperformed to ensure their bet succeeded; nevertheless, the failure of cricket authorities to censure Lillee and Marsh at the time have led some to suggest that it contributed to the match-fixing crises that plagued international cricket in the 1990s and 2000s.

Another scandal was Mark Waugh and Shane Warne's fines from the Australian Cricket Board for offering information about the weather and pitch information to "John the bookmaker". The report by Rob O'Regan QC, concluded that cricketers were not fully informed about the dangers of interacting with bookmakers, and although no further punishment could be given to either Waugh or Warne, in the future players should be punished by not only fines, but also by suspensions.

In 1995 Australian batsman Mark Waugh, received $4,000 and Australian bowler Shane Warne was paid $5,000 to provide pitch and weather conditions to “John” an Indian bookmaker during a tour of Sri Lanka. Although the players were fined in 1995 for the corruption, the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) remained unscathed until 1998 when it was vilified for its alleged co-conspiratorial cover-up of the illicit information gathering.

The ICC was slow to react, but did eventually in 2000 set up an Anti-Corruption and Security Unit headed by Sir Paul Condon, former head of London's Metropolitan Police. It claims to have reduced corruption in cricket to a 'reducible minimum'.

During the 4th Test of 2010 Pakistani tour of England, English newspaper News of the World published a story with allegations that Mazhar Majeed and some of the Pakistani players were involved in spot fixing. The Pakistani players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were later jailed and banned from cricket.

In 2013, three cricketers from New Zealand were approached by the ICC in regards of match fixing, later named as Lou Vincent, Chris Cairns and Daryl Tuffey. In 2014, Vincent admitted to being involved in match fixing

In popular culture

• The 2009 Hindi film, 99, starring Kunal Khemu, Boman Irani, Soha Ali Khan and Cyrus Broacha, is set in the year 1999, with the India-South Africa match fixing controversy as the backdrop.
• The 2008 Hindi film, Jannat, directed by Kunal Deshmukh and starring Emran Hashmi, Sonal Chauhan and Javed Sheikh is also based on Match fixing.
• The 2013 poem A Fixed Match by Dr Tapan Kumar Pradhan on match fixing in cricket was short-listed for AIPC-2013 Poetry Award.

See also

• List of cricketers banned for match fixing
• Pakistan cricket spot-fixing controversy