Corruption watchdog warns of ‘massive’ fixing problem

CRICKET has become complacent and has to do more to combat the “massive problem” of corruption in the sport, the game’s former anti-corruption chief warned yesterday, after three Pakistan players were jailed in London for spot-fixing.

Ex-Test captain Salman Butt, 27, was jailed for two-and-a-half years for his role as the “orchestrator” of a plot to bowl deliberate no-balls in the Lord’s Test against England in August 2010.

Former world number two Test bowler Mohammad Asif, 28, received a 12-month prison term for delivering one of the fraudulent no-balls.

Mohammad Amir, 19, who had been tipped to become one of the all-time great fast bowlers, was detained for six months in a young offenders’ institution after he admitted bowling two intentional no-balls at Lord’s.

Mazhar Majeed, 36, the corrupt London-based sports agent at the heart of the fixing scandal, was jailed for two years and eight months.

Passing sentence at London’s Southwark Crown Court, Mr Justice Cooke said the four men had damaged the integrity of cricket and betrayed all fans of the sport through their greed.

He said they engaged in corruption in a game whose very name used to be associated with “fair dealing on the sporting field”, adding that future matches would forever be tainted by the fixing scandal.

The four defendants sat impassively in the dock of Southwark’s Court four, which was packed with journalists and cricket fans, as they learned their fates.

They will be released on licence after serving half their prison terms.

Butt, Asif and Majeed were expected to begin their sentences at Wandsworth jail in south London while Amir was due to be sent to Feltham young offenders’ institution in west London.

Lawyers for Amir and Butt said they would appeal against the sentences.

Paul Condon, the ex-policeman who is the former head of the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit, said the popularity of Twenty20 cricket had become a turning point for the game.

Condon said: “Cricket has got a massive ongoing problem. It’s got to keep its nerve. The players have got to do more and the ICC has got to do more. National boards have got to do more.

“A small group of former cops or military guys are not going to stop corruption any more than police forces stop all crime. This has got to be a collaborative effort from the ICC, the national boards and most importantly, of all the international cricketers.”

Condon added: “They betrayed their national team and betrayed cricket lovers in Pakistan and around the world. Sadly I’m afraid they deserved exactly what happened to them today.

“I think it gives a very loud message. I think too many people had got complacent in recent years.

“They either thought fixing had gone away completely or it was not a huge problem or that it didn’t really matter. It does matter.

“It’s time for everyone to stand up again and be counted. There is no room for this in cricket.”

Condon’s successor is Ronnie Flanagan, and he insisted those involved in match-fixing are only “a tiny number” but admits the spot-fixing scandal is not an isolated case.

He said: “I think it (corruption) is certainly not rampant in the world of cricket. I think it is engaged in by a tiny number of people.”

Former England captain Michael Vaughan hopes the jail terms will “send shockwaves through the game” but that the trio should have been banned for life by the ICC.