SYDNEY – Australia and England Monday rejected fresh allegations aboutcorruption in cricket by television news channel Al Jazeera, which claimedthere had been 26 spot-fixing incidents in 15 international matches.
In a follow-up documentary to one aired earlier this year, the Qatari-basedbroadcaster reported on Sunday that a small group of England playersallegedly cheated in seven games between 2011 and 2012.
It claimed Australian players were similarly involved in five matches overthe same period, Pakistan players in three and players from other,unidentified, teams in one match.
“In some cases, both teams appear to have delivered a fix,” it said,pointing to purported recordings of a match-fixer calling in the fixes to anotorious Indian bookmaker linked to organised crime.
It alleged that the suspected fixes were usually carried out by batsmen whoagreed to underperform.
Among the matches cited were England against India at Lord’s, South Africaversus Australia in Cape Town, and several games during England’s seriesagainst Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates.
The International Cricket Council said it had launched an investigation andwould work with professional independent betting analysts.
“The ICC is committed to working to uphold integrity in cricket,” said thehead of the governing body’s anti-corruption unit Alex Marshall.
“As you would expect we will again take the contents of the programme andany allegations it may make seriously and will investigate fully.”
The ICC also launched a probe after the original Al Jazeera documentary andin August Marshall said “we have been able to discount a number of claimsmade in the programme and continue to pursue other aspects”.
That documentary alleged corruption among Australia and England players ingames in 2016 and 2017.
Read Top Stories
Those claims were dismissed by both countries, with the latest documentarysparking a similar response from Cricket Australia and the England CricketBoard.
“Cricket Australia takes a zero-tolerance approach against anyone trying tocompromise the integrity of the game, and to suggest anything otherwise isunsubstantiated and incorrect,” CA chief executive James Sutherland saidMonday.
“We have full confidence in our players in also protecting the game.”
Prior to the latest broadcast, CA’s Integrity Unit conducted a review ofthe claims, which it said came from a “known criminal source”.
“From the limited information provided by Al Jazeera, our team have notidentified any issues of corruption by any current or former player,” saidSutherland.
The ECB was also adamant that the claims lacked credibility.
“Whilst the limited information we have been given by Al Jazeera is poorlyprepared and lacks clarity and corroboration, it has been properlyassessed,” it said in a statement.
“Analysis of this by the ECB integrity team has cast no doubt on theintegrity or behaviour of any England player, current or former.” – APP/AFP
