Dec 21, 1998
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CRICKET BRIBERY Lifting the Covers After remaining silent for three years the Australian Cricket Board admits that its top players Shane Warne and Mark Waugh had accepted money from a bookie. By Peter Roebuck in Sydney and Rohit Brijnath It was the day all hell broke loose in Australian cricket, the day Australian players were found with their hands in the till. The Australian Cricket Board (ACB), which had kept the information secret for years, finally admitted that two of their cricketing icons Mark Waugh and Shane Warne had been paid to provide information to an Indian bookmaker during the Singer Cup in Sri Lanka in 1994. It was an enormous shock to the cricket community and beyond. The assumptions on which Australian cricket has been built were shattered.
The response in the subcontinent was quite the opposite. In Pakistan Salim Malik called it "the happiest day of my life". Warne and Waugh had claimed in 1995 that Malik had offered them $200,000 (Rs 85 lakh) to play poorly. Says Malik: "Their allegations destroyed my career at a time when I was at my peak. Now I want to see what the International Cricket Council (ICC) and their board will do." Indeed the Warne-Waugh issue raises several questions: why did the ACB cover it up and why did the ICC, which knew of the incident in 1995, choose to keep quiet? In India interest centred on the identity of the bookie. The Australians believed he was from Chennai and apparently named "John". Among Indians rumours pointed to a powerful Delhi-based bookie called Mukesh. What mattered more was: do Indian players also report on the weather? Technically, it is not match-fixing, yet giving out information on pitches (will it turn on the fourth day?) and match conditions is unethical. The Melbourne Age even quoted former Australian batsman Dean Jones as saying, "There are 'moles' in every cricket team around the world ready to sell information to bookmakers." Last year former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif had said several Indian players used to call him seeking such information. It is a startling coincidence that the Warne-Waugh episode has its roots in the 1994 Singer Cup. Manoj Prabhakar alleged that it was at this cup that a teammate offered him money to throw a match against Pakistan. Pakistani bookie Salim Pervez told Pakistan's Judicial Commission investigating match-fixing that he had handed Malik a briefcase with $100,000 (Rs 42.5 lakh) allegedly to fix the tournament's Pakistan-Australia match. And it was while the Singer matches were on that Waugh and Warne were approached. One unsubstantiated story has it that a man approached Warne, told him he was a great cricketer, gave him $5,000 (Rs 2.12 lakh) to spend at the gambling tables and later returned to genially ferret information. Whatever, this request for innocuous information on pitch and weather conditions is seen as a sweetener, the first step of a devious seduction. Warne and Waugh, both inveterate gamblers, took the bait for $5,000 and $6,000 (Rs 2.55 lakh) -- less than their fines of $8,000 (Rs 3.4 lakh) and $10,000 (Rs 4.25 lakh) -- unaware that they were being softened up for a later sting. It is hardly coincidental that soon after the very same Australian players were allegedly approached by Malik in Pakistan. Yet it is not the sheer stupidity of the Australian players that is startling but the cover-up. Mark Ray who writes for the Age was the first to scent the story in 1995, his suspicions strengthened when he received an anonymous letter from a Australian state cricketer four years ago which mentioned Waugh's name. When Ray confronted Waugh he was surprised by the cricketer's reaction. Explains Ray: "He denied it at first. And I said if you say that to me (deny it) on record then the matter is closed as far as I'm concerned. But Mark said 'I don't want to say anything' and that made me suspicious." Still, Ray could not pin down the evidence. A month ago Malcolm Conn, another Australian journalist, picked up some rumours while covering the judicial inquiry in Lahore. Pursuing the story, he too met with a lot of brick walls and fabrications. Gradually other reporters started sniffing around and the ACB realised that suppression was no longer an option. Slowly the facts emerged over what happened. Alarmed by the original allegations about Malik's attempts to bribe their players and rattled by a phone call from Ray asking questions, senior ACB officials in 1995 instructed the Australian team manager Ian McDonald to find out whether any other payments had been offered or accepted. McDonald was with the team in New Zealand where he asked each player. It was then that Warne and Waugh admitted taking money from the bookmaker for giving out apparently routine information. Upon hearing these indiscretions, Graham Hablish, then ACB chief executive, and Alan Crompton, then ACB chairman, met the players in a hotel room near Sydney airport -- the team was on its way to the Caribbean -- imposed the fines of $10,000 and $8000 and promptly let the matter rest. Only after the team's departure was the rest of the ACB told of the fines. More pertinently, wrote Ray, "The (board) meeting's minutes did not record any discussion of this serious matter." As it happened the ICC's Sir Clyde Walcott and David Richards were in Sydney at the time and they were told about these breaches and sworn to secrecy. Incredibly the ICC allowed the cover-up to continue. As Richards argued in a press release last week, "Historically each country has had the sole power and responsibility to deal with its own players on matters of discipline." Meanwhile, the Pakistani board was attempting to come to grips with the scandals in its own backyard. Notwithstanding the diligent work of the judge leading the inquiry in Lahore and the courage of several Pakistani players in telling their side of the story neither the ACB nor the ICC thought it necessary to tell the inquiry commission that some of the Australian witnesses had been compromised. When India Today posed this question to the ICC, it was told, "Mr Richards is not making any statements today." What it meant was the Pakistani judge was allowed to proceed on the false premise that the Australians were unblemished. Had not some reporters dragged the truth out this illusion might have still prevailed. In fact, when asked why Waugh didn't offer his own experience as evidence during his testimony in Pakistan, ACB Chief Executive Malcolm Speed said he wasn't asked the question. Yet as Ray says, "If he was genuine in wanting to clean up the game he should have volunteered that information." The end result is this: Pakistanis are not the only ones involved in this seedy aspect of the game. It is an international matter. A Test captain recently confirmed that devious things had occurred in a series involving his team. A senior batsman had said that he was offered money to play badly. No Pakistani was involved in the second proposition. Cricket is a beautiful game. But it requires a cleaning. |
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Inevitably the backlash has been severe. Australian
Prime Minister John Howard expressed fury at ACB's cover-up. Questions were asked in
Parliament. Radio stations featured nothing else as callers vented their anger. Newspapers
told the tale beneath soaring headlines on their front and back pages. Not in Australia's
recent past has such emotion been aroused by a sporting event. The prosecution had turned
into the defendant. People felt let down. 
