Fixing impressions

Paul Condon,who founded the International Cricket Councils anti-corruption and security unit,has stated what has for long been a prevalent impression. In an interview this week,he implied that every team in international cricket in the 1990s had been touched by match-fixing. His exact words: Every international team,at some stage,had someone doing some funny stuff. Condon did not offer much by way of specifics,but his comments nonetheless revive a lingering question,how do you if you can at all set the record book straight to account for these persons doing some funny stuff?

Unlike team sports like football,field hockey and basketball,cricket allows a players individual record to provide a comparatively complete profile of her or his career. Take a case in which match-fixing,with a cricketers performance being proven to have been influenced by an unlawful receipt of money or favour,is established. Should the statistics from that match be permitted to remain on the record books? After all,if even one player intentionally threw away his wicket,slowed down scoring,dropped a catch,or bowled a loose spell,etc,it could alter unfairly the circumstances in which the rest performed. Yet,erasing a players record off the books is not so simple,as it is in,say,athletics where the rankings can be easily reworked. A cricketer known to be complicit in match-fixing will have his reputation wrecked,and that is exemplary punishment but it is not so easy to erase a matchs scorecard,for that would not be fair to the rest.

This is all,of course,a mostly academic exercise. There is a vast difference between the perception of match-fixing and its proof. But perceptions matter,and it has been a significant triumph for the sport that today,while suspicion of stray funny stuff remains,nobody would suggest that every international team is touched by it.