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T20 leagues are at greatest risk of corruption: ICC

Last Updated 30 May 2018, 19:00 IST

Global cricket chiefs believe newly-emerging domestic Twenty20 competitions are the tournaments at greatest risk of corruption, following match-fixing allegations made by broadcaster Al Jazeera.

International Cricket Council (ICC) officials are due to meet with Al Jazeera management as they look to explore all of the material, including as yet unbroadcast footage of claims against unnamed players that the Middle East-based television channel also alluded to in its documentary 'Cricket's Match-Fixers'.

David Richardson, the ICC's chief executive, has promised a thorough investigation of all the allegations while admitting that the rash of Twenty20 leagues springing up all over the world are especially vulnerable to fixing.

"I think those leagues do provide an additional opportunity for the people that want to get involved and try and fix," Richardson told reporters in London on Wednesday at an event to mark a year until the 2019 Cricket World Cup in England and Wales.

"So what we need to make sure is that anyone staging a T20 domestic tournament, especially televised, that they have in place minimum standards for dealing with the problem.

"To make sure they have an anti-corruption code in place that is applicable to the tournament, that all the players are educated, and that we are monitoring the franchise owners, the people involved in the tournament, doing due diligence."

The Al Jazeera programme quoted a self-acknowledged fixer suggesting the ICC's own anti-corruption unit was of little concern to the major criminal gangs involved in trying to manipulate cricket -- which now mainly occurs through spot-fixing where incidents within a game are fixed to facilitate betting coups.

This only requires bribing a few players, rather than the greater number of cricketers in a match needed to make sure of fixing the result.

There have been claims that the ACU is desperately under-resourced for the job it has to do and former South Africa wicket-keeper Richardson, asked if it could cope with its workload, replied: "Well, not necessarily at ICC, but certainly in conjunction with our members.

"So it's going to be a case in the future that before any approval is given for these types of tournaments that happen outside the full members, they've got to show that they've either got the ICC involved in setting up an anti-corruption unit, or the tournament doesn't take place.

"We've got to take much sterner action in the future."

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(Published 30 May 2018, 18:58 IST)

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