Who's investigating the investigators?

So Pakistan's players have been cleared of match-fixing in the 1999 World Cup, we learnt in the release of the ICC-instigated Bhandari Commission report last weekend. It says something about cricket's weariness with the subject of corruption that this almost forgotten inquiry received such little fanfare. And given its conclusions, that was understandable.

As has been the case before, the lack of anything more than circumstantial evidence, quite reasonably, resulted in the clearance. "The Commission is of the view that it is difficult to hold this match (Pakistan-Bangladesh) was fixed," the report stated. Short of witnesses viewing money changing hands, secret tape recordings or other tangible evidence, it was never going to be any different.

But haven't we been through this before? Did not the much-delayed Qayyum commission of inquiry ban Salim Malik and fine several others, including current players Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Saeed Anwar, and Inzamam ul-Haq, for varying degrees of unco-operation in 1999?

Whereas the Bhandari commission specifically probed whether two matches - Pakistan-Bangladesh and Pakistan-India - at the World Cup were fixed and has an ad-hoc feel, the Qayyum commission comprehensively investigated allegations of match-fixing against Pakistan generally. The terms of reference were different, but the Qayyum Commission report remains easily the more authoritative of the two.

However, the one intriguing aspect to emerge from the Bhandari inquiry was the anonymous letter alleging a $US1,500,000 payment was made into Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) accounts, following a conversation overheard by the author in which the government told the PCB it would have to raise its own finances. The suggestion was that this payment resulted from the Bangladesh match being fixed, which was refuted because it was shown that the payments received were television rights money from Transworld International.

Still, what the allegation raises is an almost universally ignored possibility - that match-fixing does not merely concern the involvement of corrupt players, but extends all the way to board level. Moreover, it raises the implication that players, rather than acting purely in their own interests as is commonly thought, could be involved in match-fixing under the specific directive of their board. Unlikely? Well, it at least merits some thought.

Point C of the Bhandari inquiry terms of reference was "to determine whether some individuals were responsible for match fixing and betting". If "individuals" was meant to include members of the board from that time, fine, but if not then the scope was somewhat limited. Only on the basis of the allegation contained in the letter did the Commission seek to investigate the accounts of the PCB.

If cricket boards - and we're not accusing anyone in particular here, just speculating generally -- were systematically involved in match -- or event-fixing as a form of extra-curricular revenue-raising, it would help explain their reluctance to punish their own players. Typically this has been thought a question of national pride, but if corruption involved the governing body then investigations and internal sanctions against players would understandably be a delicate proposition.

Without wanting to cast aspersions on the PCB or any current administration, the plight that Boards like the PCB is presently suffering, missing out on valuable revenue, can't be ignored. Let's face it, national cricket boards probably have been, and in some cases possibly still are, run by some questionable characters, against whom the corruption of players likely pales in comparison. Under financial duress, or simply out of greed, would it not be possible for influential members of authority to conduct match-fixing as a means of raising funds?

The Australian Cricket Board, as we know, originally hid the Waugh-Warne money-taking affair from the public. It is difficult to believe this is the worst of offences perpetrated by officialdom.

One suspects there is a lot we don't know about the mentality of players involved in corruption. Can we be certain that ODIs aren't really regarded as inconsequential jobs, with results bearing so little significance that revenue is to be maximised in any way possible? Resentment over pay and conditions, a long-standing issue in cricket, must only have exacerbated the risk of this mindset developing.

But the proliferation of ODIs in the 1990s could have been a financial bonanza for unscrupulous administrators in more ways than one, too. Not only is it questionable how the status of ODIs are regarded among players, but the possibility of official involvement in corruption is also a grey area.

To continue the conjecture, by backing the opposition, and instructing influential players through whatever means to ensure a certain outcome, and rewarding them in the process, board officials could generate some substantial additional sums. Even if this has never occurred, and it is nothing more than supposition, it is still unrealistic to assume that corruption taints players, with all their flaws, but goes no higher. Officials are surely not greater paragons of virtue.

Such arrangements would not be as difficult as imagined, either. By using contacts linked to a variety of legal and illegal bookmakers, the manipulators could wager on the opposition or controllable events within a match, ensure the ensnared players comply and are handsomely rewarded for their participation, and watch the money roll in.

Disturbingly, it would not even have to excessively damage their team's interests. There are enough "dead" or relatively inconsequential ODIs - such as Pakistan-Bangladesh at the World Cup, and even Pakistan-India in the Super Six - to make the odd killing without resorting to fixing matches of prestige like elimination games in the World Cup. Wasim Akram has long alleged a campaign against him by former PCB chief Majid Khan, who along with Sarfraz Nawaz has been one of the chief accusers. Why is this so? What kind of internal politics are at work? There are possibilities all is not what it seems.

That's the unexplored side of match-fixing. It might well be entirely baseless, but it still deserves some official consideration. Unfortunately it's hard to investigate the boards when they are the authorities who set the terms of the investigations.

More Columns

Mail Daniel Laidlaw