Match Fixing.... A game within a game.

[AtulaSiriwardane]

It is unbelievable... but is it true?​

In organized sports, match fixing or game fixing occurs when a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result. Where the sporting competition in question is a race then the incident is referred to as race fixing. Games that are deliberately lost are sometimes called thrown games. When a team intentionally loses a game to obtain a perceived future competitive advantage rather than gamblers being involved, the team is often said to have tanked the game instead of having thrown it. In pool hustling, tanking is known as dumping.
Thrown games, when motivated by gambling, require contacts (and normally money transfers) between gamblers, players, team officials, and/or referees. These contacts and transfer can sometimes be found, and lead to prosecution, by law or by the sports league(s). In contrast, tanking is internal to the team and very hard to prove. Often, substitutions made by the coach designed to deliberately increase the team's chances of losing (frequently by having one or more key players sit out, often using minimal or phantom injuries as a public excuse for doing this), rather than ordering the players actually on the field to intentionally underperform, were cited as the main factor in cases where tanking has been alleged.
Cricket has been scandalized by several gambling and match fixing allegations in recent years, culminating in the World Cup investigations of 2007. These highly publicised enquiries were prompted by the surprise defeat of Pakistan in the Cup by Ireland and the subsequent murder investigation into the sudden death, straight after the match, of Pakistan's head coach Bob Woolmer. Cricket match-fixing and the fallout of the Woolmer case have since become the subject of crime/thriller literature in the novel 'Raffles and the Match-Fixing Syndicate' (2008) by Adam Corres.
In 2000 the Delhi police intercepted a conversation between a blacklisted bookie and the South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje in which they learnt that Cronje accepted money to throw matches. The South African government refused to allow any of its players to face the Indian investigation unit, which opened up a can of worms. A court of inquiry was set up and Cronje admitted to throwing matches. He was immediately banned from all cricket. He also named Salim Malik (Pakistan), Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja (India). Jadeja was banned for 4 years. They too were banned from all cricket. As a kingpin, Cronje exposed the dark side of betting, however with his untimely death in 2002 most of his sources also have escaped law enforcement agencies. Two South African cricketers, Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje, are also wanted by the Delhi police for their role in the match fixing saga. A few years before in 1998, Australian players Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were fined for revealing information about the 'weather' to a bookmaker.

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[AtulaSiriwardane]

Former India Captain Banned

Azharuddin and 4 Others Are Punished for Cricket Match Fixing :
Former India Captain Banned​

"This is a sad day in the annals of Indian cricket," A.C. Muthiah, chief of the BCCI, said after a meeting of the board's disciplinary committee in Madras.
"There is clear evidence of match fixing against Azharuddin," Muthiah said. "There also is evidence that Sharma acted as a conduit for match fixing. That's why we clubbed the two of them together and gave life bans. Others had nexus with bookmakers and introduced players to the bookmakers, which is a serious breach of cricketing codes."

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[AtulaSiriwardane]

Players' statements

Saleem Parvez S/o Ghulam Muhyuddin (Recorded on 24th October, 1998)

I went to Sri Lanka when Pakistan was playing in the Singer Cup (in 1994). I stayed for one month, for some days in the same hotel where the team was. Most of the matches played by Pakistan and other teams are fixed. In this activity, Salim Malik and Mushtaq Ahmed are the leaders and they at the appropriate time involve other players also. Once I overheard Salim Malik and Mushtaq talking about having a match fixed. I overheard them saying they have to lose their match. This conversation took place in the hotel corridor. I went to Sri Lanka at Mushtaq's insistence who said I should come to Sri Lanka so as to see some matches and maybe something comes out of it. These players have been indulging in match-fixing even before that but not in my presence. Mushtaq and Salim Malik had received $100,000 from me on behalf of someone for fixing the match in Sri Lanka. The amount was paid so that Pakistan should lose the match, which they did lose. It was a match against Australia. Intikhab Alam is also involved in this match-fixing. He has remained manager of Pakistan and has put up two factories here. In my view matches in South Africa and Zimbabwe were also fixed. So was the quarter-final in Bangalore as I think that Ijaz Ahmed deliberately got out while playing rash. I acted on behalf of my friends whose names I can't disclose for security reasons. They are not book-makers but one of their friends is. I carried $100,000 with me. I had taken this money to Sri Lanka as I knew the team is going to sell the matches to Kerry Packer or to Bakhatar and therefore, I thought that why I should not try. I handed over the dollars to both of them who were together in their hotel room. The two players had contacted me directly in this connection. They had asked for a larger amount but I told them I have only $100,000.

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[AtulaSiriwardane]

Hansie Cronje

Match fixingOn 7 April 2000, Delhi police revealed they had a recording of a conversation between Cronje and Sanjay Chawla, a representative of an Indian betting syndicate, over match-fixing allegations. Three other players: Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje and Pieter Strydom were also implicated. On 8 April 2000 the UCBSA (United Cricket Board of South Africa) denied that any of their players were involved in match-fixing, Cronje said "the allegations are completely without substance" [24]. However, on April 11 Cronje was sacked as captain after confessing to Ali Bacher that he had not been "entirely honest". He admitted accepting between $10,000 and $15,000 from a London-based bookmaker for 'forecasting' results, not match fixing, during the recent one day series in India.
On 7 June the King Commission began. The following day Gibbs revealed that Cronje had offered him $15,000 to score less than 20 runs in the 5th ODI at Nagpur. He also admitted another offer of $15,000 to Henry Williams to concede more than 50 runs in that same match. Gibbs scored 74 off 53 balls and Williams injured his shoulder and couldn't complete his second over so neither received the $15,000. Off-spinner Derek Crookes, who was also a witness, admitted being surprised to open the bowling at Nagpur [25].
On 15 June Cronje released a statement that revealed all his contact with bookmakers. In 1996 during the third Test in Kanpur, he was introduced to Mukesh Gupta by Mohammad Azharuddin. Gupta gave Cronje $30,000 to persuade the South Africans to lose wickets on the last day to lose the match, South Africa were 127/5 chasing 460, Cronje was already out and spoke to no other players "I had received money for doing nothing". During the return tour Cronje received $50,000 from Gupta for team information.
In the 2000 Centurion Test Marlon Aronstam contacted him offering R500,000 for the charity of his choice together with a gift if Cronje declared and made a game of it. He also admitted asking Pieter Strydom to place an R50 bet on South Africa to win for him. After the match Aronstam visited Cronje giving him two amounts of money (R30,000 and R20,000) together with a leather jacket. The promised R500,000 did not materialise. Before the one-day series Cronje received repeated calls from "Sanjay" asking to fix a match, Cronje gave him the names of Gibbs, Strydom and Boje to try to get rid of him. But Cronje was offered $140,000 for the fifth ODI if Gibbs scored under 20, Williams went for more than 50 and South Africa scored around 270.[26]
On 28 August Gibbs and Williams were suspended from playing international cricket for 6 months. Gibbs was also fined R60,000 and Williams R10,000, while Strydom received no punishment [27].
On 11 October Cronje was banned from playing or coaching cricket for life [28]. He challenged his life ban in September 2001 but on 17 October 2001 his application was dismissed [29].
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[edit] Plane crash

On 1 June 2002 Cronje's scheduled flight home from Bloemfontein to George had been grounded so instead he hitched a ride as the only passenger on a cargo flight in a Hawker Siddeley HS 748 turboprop aircraft. Near George airport, the pilots lost visibility in cloud, and were unable to land, partly due to unserviceable navigational equipment. While circling, the plane crashed into the Outeniqua mountains northeast of the airport. Cronje, aged 32, and the two pilots were killed instantly.
In August 2006 an inquest into the plane crash by South Africa's High Court started [30] - the inquest reached the conclusion that "the death of the deceased Wessel Johannes (Hansie) Cronje was brought about by an act or omission prima facie amounting to an offence on the part of pilots." [31]
However, theories that Cronje was murdered - on the orders of a cricket betting syndicate - have flourished since his death, and were most recently re-floated by former Nottinghamshire coach Clive Rice in the wake of the death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer in March 2007 [32]. Cronje's alleged involvement in match-fixing, the suspicion of murder in both the Cronje and Woolmer cases and the links between cricketers and betting syndicates have since appeared in the 2008 novel Raffles and the Match-Fixing Syndicate by Adam Corres.
Hansie, a biographical film about the life of Hansie Cronje was released on 26 September 2008. The film was written by older brother Frans Cronje and directed by Regardt van den Bergh. The title role is played by Frank Rautenbach.[33]

 

[AtulaSiriwardane]

It's not Cricket.... It is Sakwithi Chintanaya

It hurts so much reading all this...
I am so sorry that it is very difficult now to enjoy a cricket match...
Everything is corrupted....
It is a mistake to be born in this age of darkness.
What will happen to our children.