England Test skipper Andrew Strauss
questioned the resolve of cricket administrators to tackle match
fixing, calling the International Cricket Council's (ICC)
anti-corruption body 'woefully under-resourced'.
Strauss was
leading the side during last summer's Lord's Test against Pakistan when
a News of the World sting claimed that three Pakistan cricketers, the
captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, were
involved in deliberately bowling no-balls in return for money.
The three players deny any wrongdoing. The trio were banned by the ICC
and are due to appear in a court in London in July charged with
cheating and conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments.
Strauss feels that cricket administrators are not spending enough money to tackle corruption.
'Clearly most of the betting seems to go on in the sub-continent but I
wouldn't say it was just sub-continental players that are involved,'
Strauss was quoted as saying in London Evening Standard.
Strauss said there is more to match fixing than what meets the eye.
'My gut feeling is there is more to it than we know about. It is a very
difficult thing to deal with but I don't think that's an excuse not to
try to deal with it. I haven't seen any resolve to deal with the issue.
It is hard for me to comment because I don't know what's going on
behind closed doors.
'The only input I've had is with
the anti-corruption people who came round during the World Cup. It
seems to me that they are woefully under resourced. I just don't think
they've got the resources to do it properly.'
Strauss
also confirmed that England came close to not playing last year's
one-day international at Lord's against Pakistan. The day before the
match, Ijaz Butt, the head of Pakistan cricket, alleged England players
had also taken money from sub-continental bookmakers to throw matches.
'I was quite emotional myself about it,' recalls Strauss. 'My original
view was our integrity had been brought into question. We got quite
close to not playing the one-dayer at Lords. But over the course of the
evening it became a lot clearer to me that actually the right thing to
do was to play.
'We didn't feel overjoyed to be
playing the game or that series but we got through it. I am still
hopeful that good will come out of it. But they certainly don't seem to
be getting anywhere nearer to the bottom of the whole spot
fixing/match-fixing saga.' IANS
