Pakistan scandal poses major questions for ICC

Updated at: 0232 PST,  Tuesday, August 31, 2010  NEW DELHI: Betting scam allegations swirling around the Pakistan team are raising serious doubts over the ability of cricket's global anti-corruption watchdog to snuff out problems blighting the game. Britain's News of the World newspaper said Sunday it had paid middleman Mazhar Majeed 150,000 pounds (230,000 dollars) for advance details of three no-balls in the final Test match between Pakistan and England at Lord's. International Cricket Council chief executive Haroon Lorgat said the ICC, which he said has a "zero-tolerance approach to corruption in cricket", was conducting its own inquiry and would take action against any guilty players. "If these allegations are proven, action will be taken in a severe manner," he told media, adding in a statement that the game's integrity was "of paramount importance". But the alleged "spot-fixing" by Pakistani players highlights the apparent failure of the ICC's much-vaunted Anti-Corruption and Security Unit. The ACSU was set up in 2000 after a match-fixing scandal that led to life bans for Test captains Hansie Cronje (South Africa), Mohammad Azharuddin (India) and Salim Malik (Pakistan). The unit was headed by former London Metropolitan police chief Paul Condon until June, when he retired and was replaced by another senior former British policeman, Ronnie Flanagan. The ICC acknowledges that millions of dollars are gambled legally and illegally on every match, and says the ACSU was established when "cricket's reputation and integrity were tarnished and in danger of being destroyed". Respected website Cricinfo.com reported on Monday that the ACSU had been monitoring several Pakistani cricketers and the alleged middleman, Majeed, over recent months. Pakistan's tour of Australia earlier this year -- especially the second Test in which the tourists collapsed to hand the hosts an astonishing victory -- attracted ACSU interest but no action was taken. Before he retired, Condon told Cricinfo that Pakistani in-fighting on the tour had wrecked the team's motivation. "What we still need to establish is whether that was because rival camps wanted to do down captains or potential captains, or whether it was something more serious, doing it for a financial fix," he said. But ACSU investigations into the Pakistan set-up were hampered because Majeed is also agent to several of the players and could not be stopped from having access to them. One clear failing of the body has been its failure to fill the key vacancy of regional manager for Pakistan and Bangladesh since retired colonel Nuruddin Khawaja died in January. "The ICC and the ACSU are on the job, but they still need to do a lot more to ensure such things don't happen," veteran cricket writer Ayaz Memon told media. "It can't be easy to prove underhand corruption. But cricket clearly does not need such scandals." The ACSU has yet to release its report on the Sydney Test between Pakistan and Australia, which Majeed claimed was fixed in favour of the home team and earned him 1.3 million pounds. "My prediction is that you will never entirely eradicate fixing from the game of cricket," Condon told Cricinfo in May. "If you were designing a game to fix, you would design cricket, because it is a whole series of discreet events, and every ball you can bet on. "If you know in advance when a bowler is going to bowl a no-ball, it's like knowing when red or black is going to come up on a roulette wheel." Condon had targeted low-profile one-day matches and the cash-rich Indian Premier League, but gave a clean slate to the IPL's third edition this year. While trumpeting the ICC's zeal to fight corruption, Lorgat acknowledged that the ACSU is hamstrung by limited powers. "It hasn't got the powers of the police or the ability of a newspaper to mount a 'sting' operation," he told media.