There were no surprises at the culmination of proceedings at London’s Southwark crown court on Tuesday, with a 12-member jury finding Pakistani cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif guilty on charges of “conspiracy to cheat” and “conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments”. Such was the evidence stacked against the former Pakistan skipper and his star fast bowler that, barring two dissensions over the second charge, the jury’s decision was almost unanimous. The court’s action also marked the first time that any cricketer anywhere in the world has been convicted by the judicial system. So far the sport — which was first rocked by the match-fixing scandal 11 years ago — has seen a series of punishments handed out by various national cricket boards, but none of those charged ever found themselves behind bars. That is now the fate that stares Butt, Asif and fellow fast bowler Mohammad Amir in the face after the latter pleaded guilty at the start of the proceedings, possibly hoping for leniency in punishment.
The International Cricket Council has predictably said, reacting to the court’s verdict, that it was “consistent” with the findings of its own anti-corruption tribunal, but the fact remains that few players have ever really had to pay the price of fiddling with the game but for a few scattered exceptions. At a time when the potential for fraud in the sport is growing thanks to the explosive spread of Twenty20 cricket, the ICC has continued to tread cautiously despite having set up its own anti-corruption cell and posting its officers for various key series. For all that, it took a British newspaper’s sting operation to actually get guilty cricketers into a courtroom. During the course of the Southwark hearings, wild allegations were flung around imputing that vast numbers of cricketers were involved or had dabbled in “setting” games, results or even parts of matches, now infamous as “spot-fixing”. The charges were quickly denied by various cricket boards, but even if these are taken with a generous pinch of salt, further investigation at the very least is merited. In that sense, the now-defunct News Of The World did cricket a signal service, whatever its motives may have been.
Here in India we have all too often skirted the issue — first with an obstinate refusal to even accept the possibility of matches being fixed, and thereafter with timorous follow-up action. The Central Bureau of Investigation, which went into the Indian side of the matter, has 11 years later not even filed its final report. All of this is consistent with the attitude of the sport’s administrators, who have repeatedly taken the easy road at a time much harder decisions and measures are warranted.