ICC cops have fixed the system

Five years on, the demons of match fixing refuse to leave cricket alone. The arrest of India’s biggest bookie Shobhan Mehta, and statem...

Five years on, the demons of match fixing refuse to leave cricket alone. The arrest of India’s biggest bookie Shobhan Mehta, and statements from the Mumbai police about the alleged involvement of cricketers, have raised the bogey yet again.

While the police have their reasons for implying cricketers’ involvement, the fact is that it’s almost impossible for players taking part in an international match to be involved in fixing it.

The main reason for that is the formation of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit, headed by Sir Paul Condon.

The ACSU first showed its strength at the ICC Champions Trophy held in Colombo in 2002, with four of the five security officers combing the stadiums and the team hotel. One of their key roles then, as now, was to limit access to dressing rooms and player-only areas to authorised personnel.

That was also the first time we saw the signboards outside the dressing rooms barring mobile phones and displaying the ACU hotline number. The ACU had recognised that the root of match-fixing was unfettered access to players in dressing rooms and the use of mobile phones during matches.

The new protocol restricted teams to a single mobile phone on match days, held by the manager and used by players only on request. Security personnel staffed these access points for the duration of the game accompanied by cameras installed at entry and exit points of the dressing rooms.

The ACU’s task has also been aided by software to track down criminal activities. NS Virk, the ACU’s man in India, once explained that if any player did smuggle a mobile in it would eventually be detected because of the advances made in technology to track mobile calls.

Story continues below this ad

Another new development has been the inclusion of a security managers on tour to and from the subcontinent. Their role is as much to protect the cricketers from the general public as to keep bookies away.

One interesting innovation at some grounds has been the visitors’ entry slips which, once used for a period of time, can’t be used again simply because they turn pink.

Often the security staff turn to innovative procedures, as during the recent one-dayer in Visakhapatnam between India and Pakistan. The police drew up a list of three bookies in the city and handed over the details to the security manager. If any of them were seen hovering near the match centre, the inference wouldn’t be hard to draw.

Of course, despite all these safeguards there are still loopholes. The most obvious being the hotel rooms, where cricketers can, if they wish, elude security and meet members of the public.