Club Cricket Conference

Thursday, 28th March 2024

Hawkins book warns of clear and present danger from fixing

By Charles Randall

21 November 2012

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The decision by the ECB last summer to extend broadcasting rights of international and county cricket to the subcontinent for another seven years hardens the risk of corruption into a certainty. The media commented on this issue at the time, but a new book by Ed Hawkins underlines the point in devastating fashion.

Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Corrupt Heart of Cricket’s Underworld (Bloomsbury: £16.99) provides hard evidence for supposing dishonesty will always lurk in the shadow of big money, despite reassuring noises from the ICC administration. With subcontinent punters drawn to live televised matches, fixing will not go away until the gambling industry is legalised in India -- an unlikely happening -- which would allow suspicious betting patterns to be more readily noticed.

This is a very well written book, a probable award winner. Hawkins, a sports journalist specialising in betting, educates his readers on the ways of cricket bookmaking and gambling in India. Chapters focus on shady meetings, phone calls, emails and cricket matches -- a dissection of mighty machinery that sucks in millions of pounds. The narrative often sounds like fiction, but it ain't. The conclusion can easily be drawn that cricket in England is already tainted by corruption. The book suggests that Mervyn Westfield, the first cricketer to be prosecuted for fixing, was not an isolated case of dishonesty; he just happened to have got caught.

During his months among the Indian bookmakers Hawkins claims to have assembled the names of 45 former and current cricketers -- international and domestic -- involved in corrupt activity at some stage. None are named in the book for "legal reasons" as presumably the allegations cannot be substantiated. But surprisingly that does not matter. Even if the figure is a hopeless exaggeration by some deluded source, the book contains a strong core of evidence that the county game, especially, is ill-equipped to resist fixing. There will always be someone perhaps down on his luck or disaffected or blackmailed or theatened or simply fooled into accepting money for helping the fixers. That is what the bookies and fixers think. That is what an authorative book believes.

The Anti Corruption and Security Unit, set up by the ICC in 2000, is these days headed by Chris Watts, a former Met anti-terrorist expert, and he is well aware of the fixing danger, but there are no resources to police the county game. He is more concerned about complacency at international level. One of Hawkins's Indian contacts manages to 'predict' events in three 2011 World Cup matches, with some startlingly accurate figures for passages of play in the India v Pakistan semi-final at Mohali.

Apparently most betting through India or Dubai bookmakers focuses on runs per block of overs, final totals, result and margin of victory. Novelty wagers or ball-by-ball bets do not seem to feature much, and Hawkins explores that significance in the light of the jailed Pakistan no-ball fixers against England. They must have suspected that actual betting could not have been involved in the News Of The World sting. For readers of the book, now feeling expert in the ways of Indian bookmaking, this is quite intriguing.

Sometimes a county one-dayer might be the only ESPN Star televised match available for viewing on the subcontinent on a certain day. The potential for fixing and enriching corrupt players soars. Wrong-doers are highly unlikely to be caught as Hawkins feels the county circuit is a fraternity that still discourages whistle-blowing. Not everyone admired Tony Palladino for exposing Westfield's wrong-doing, and he moved on to Derbyshire.

Reporting a colleague, according to some players, would be similar to 'grassing'. "This is shameful," says Hawkins, "because there is no more powerful regulatory force than the players. They could do more than any sting operation, ACSU officer or administrator to rid the game of corruption by reporting every approach by a corruptor or informing on team-mates or opponents on whom they have inside knowledge."

An ACSU officer said they did get feedback from players about suspicions but not as much as they expected. Hawkins said: "If the culture is to change, the lead must come from the Professional Cricketers Association, the Federation of International Cricketers Associations and individual cricket boards." He added there was an "unpalatable tendency" by boards, especially, to humiliate anyone who made an allegation against a team or player.

Hawkins disappointingly does not seek a balancing view from a county authority. Ways of breaking the omerta culture might have been explored. It might be interesting to know how the damage to team spirit and playing success could be mitigated if suspicions did arise. At one extreme is the prospect of paranoia breaking out whenever a match is televised by ESPN Star.

It is worth repeating Judge Anthony Morris's words at the Old Bailey in sentencing Westfield to four months prison early this year. The crux was the breaking of trust. He said: "If because of corrupt payments, it cannot be guaranteed that every player will play to the best of his ability, the reality is that the enjoyment of many millions of people around the world who watch cricket, whether on television or at cricket grounds, will eventually be destroyed."

Cricket cannot have it both ways. Central funding is crucial to the game, and the ECB have to find an ever-increasing amount of money. The ESPN tie-up since 2008 has been lucrative, and the extension should produce roughly £120 million. As with Sky money from the satellite monopoly of live matches, which drastically reduces cricket's television exposure, there will be a price to pay. As a vehicle for large-scale betting, domestic cricket has put its integrity on the line.

From 2013 under the ECB agreement, ESPN will broadcast 60 days of domestic cricket each year, including the Friends Life T20 competition, the CB40 tournament, the LV-County Championship, and representative games involving England Lions, England Under-19 and England Women. The deal takes in more than 300 days of live international cricket, including three Ashes series in 2013, 2015 and 2019.

 

Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Corrupt Heart of Cricket’s Underworld by Ed Hawkins, is published by Bloomsbury at £16.99. An ebook is available at £12.99.