Personal View: Charles Randall


The ICC took another step against corruption at their board meeting in Dubai this month when they  set up a panel to be known as the Corruption Unit Oversight Group.

Though this  independent group will only meet once a year -  to review strategy adopted by various cricket authorities to tackle corruption - they will be on hand to provide advice and guidance to the chairman of the ICC's Anti Corruption Unit. The proliferation of big-money televised T20 competitions  in all the major cricket countries has guaranteed that  temptation to cheat among players will remain ever-present.

The Hansie Cronje scandal in 2000 lifted the lid on the horrifyingly wide extent of corruption in professional cricket; his exposure implicated other players. The ICC, hitherto inept, had to introduce a web of regulations to deter corruption and to break a loose bond of silence among the cricket fraternity.  Cronje, caught only through sheer chance by police underworld surveillance, was the first to be punished. Since then another  32 cricketers have been suspended, a number swelled by the relatively new offence of failing to report an approach.

So far 10 players have been sanctioned in the Indian Premier League alone. This includes life bans for spot fixing for the Test seam bowler Sreesanth and two lesser Indian players. The year 2016 started with a 20-year ban for the South Africa spinner Gulam Bodi for his fixing activities in the South African T20 competition, the Ram Slam.

It was probably a good thing that Mohammad Amir returned to international cricket in January as a reminder of the danger of complacency.  Not everyone agreed that the Pakistan left-arm seamer should be allowed back after his  five-year ban by the ICC for spot fixing in the Test against England at the Oval in 2010, not to mention his  prison sentence.

The 'kerr-ching'  incident during the T20 against New Zealand in Wellington
emphasised that Amir will have to accept the downside of being a convicted cheat. It  appeared that the Westpac Stadium ground announcer could not resist broadcasting a cash register sound when Amir came on to bowl.

Naturally the New Zealand Cricket chief executive David White, suitably outraged, said he would investigate such "inappropriate" behaviour, but it was quite funny at the time. Three days later at the one-dayer down the road at Basin Reserve there was barracking, and a spectator was spotted waving bank notes at Amir. Security staff  stepped in to warn off the spectator, and White reckoned the money gesture had "crossed a line". How many people would agree with that?

White admitted that banter from the stands was inevitable and that people could not generally be directed how to behave, but the Amir incident, he felt, was  "different". Pakistan Cricket's chairman Shahryar Khan said Amir's re-integration into the team was going well, but he added that Amir had been shaken by the crowd reaction at Wellington. Well, one might think that isn't really much of a shame.

Amir made many, no doubt sincere, apologies after his six-month prison term, and the two senior players convicted with him - Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt, the captain - were far more culpable. He pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court, and that was a good start to rehabilitation, but one cannot blame cricket followers from reminding him about the damage inflicted on the game's integrity.

Even without crooks and cash, the definition of  integrity in cricket can be rather blurred. The ruse in 1988 by Dorset to donate 60 runs in one over to revive Cheshire's interest in chasing a target at Sherborne was heavily criticised and widely applauded. Cheshire, after a batting collapse, were playing out for a draw comfortably in this Minor Counties Championship game when the Dorset captain Andrew Wingfield-Digby brought on non-bowler Graeme Calway and instructed him to bowl wides down the leg side until further notice. A total of 13 wides went to the boundary, Cheshire were tempted, and - the bottom line - Dorset won the game.
The great England off-spinner Jim Laker mentioned donating his Surrey team-mate Eric Bedser a full toss to get off the mark in the notorious trial game, England versus The Rest, at Bradford in 1950. Harmless enough, no money involved, but....

Laker's figures for England were 14-12-2-8, one of those runs being the donated single to Bedser. The Rest were shot out for 27 before lunch on the first day of a game Peter May described as "the height of futility". But imagine a bowler deliberately giving away a run these days for a non-strategic reason in a televised T20 in Yorkshire. He would be in Leeds Crown Court before he could blink.