Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

has had a number of controversies relating to players being involved with the betting aspects of the game. In particular, numerous players have been approached by

bookmaker A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795. Range of events Bookm ...

s and bribed to throw matches, aspects of matches (e.g.

the toss In cricket, the toss is the flipping of a coin to determine which captain will have the right to choose whether their team will bat or field at the start of the match. Before play begins, the captain of each side will inspect the pitch. Based ...

) or provide other information.

1999–2000 India-South Africa match fixing scandal

In 2000, the

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

police intercepted a conversation between a blacklisted bookie and the

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

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. A court of inquiry was set up and Cronje admitted to throwing matches. He was immediately banned from all cricket. He also named Saleem Malik (

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

Mohammed Azharuddin Mohammad Azharuddin (born 8 February 1963) is an Indian politician and a former international cricketer and former captain of India national cricket team. He is the working president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee and was the mem ...

and Ajay Jadeja (both

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

). Jadeja was banned for four years. They too were banned from all cricket. Two South African cricketers,

Herschelle Gibbs Herschelle Herman Gibbs (born 23 February 1974) is a South African cricket coach and former cricketer, who played all formats of the game for fourteen years. A right-handed batsman, mostly opened the batting, Gibbs became the first player to hi ...

and Nicky Boje, were also listed as wanted by the Delhi police for their role in the scandal.

2018 Sri Lanka cricket pitch tampering scandal

On 26 May 2018

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazee ...

news channel findings depict that possibly pitch tampering would have happened during the home test matches involving Sri Lanka against Australia in 2016 and against India in 2017. The news channel also stated that through monitoring the pitch conditions the fixers have managed easily to make money. Match-fixers

Robin Morris Robin Francis Morris (born 6 November 1976) is a former Indian cricketer who played for both Mumbai cricket team, Mumbai and Odisha cricket team, Odisha in first-class, List A and T20 matches. He was caught for involving in doctoring the pitch ...

, a former Indian domestic cricketer along with

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, wikt:دبي, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates#Major cities, most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 ...

based business person Gaurav Rajkumar, Galle groundsman Tharanga Indika and Sri Lankan first-class cricketer Tharindu Mendis have also been investigated by the ICC for attempting another pitch tampering at Galle in Sri Lanka's forthcoming first test match against England as a part of the England's upcoming series against Sri Lanka in November 2018. Concerns also raised by the English Cricket Board whether to play away series against Sri Lanka over the planned pitch tampering at the Galle Cricket Stadium for the first Test match.

Other controversies

During the third Test of the

1981 Ashes series The tour by the Australian cricket team in England in 1981 included the 51st Ashes series of Test matches between Australia and England. Despite having been 1–0 down after two Tests, England won the next three to finish 3–1 victor ...

, Australian players

Dennis Lillee Dennis Keith Lillee, (born 18 July 1949) is Australian retired cricketer rated as the "outstanding fast bowler of his generation".

and Rod Marsh placed a bet on England to win the match after the odds had ballooned out to 500–1. Australia were widely expected to win the match with England at 135-7 after having been made to

follow-on In the game of cricket, a team who batted second and scored significantly fewer runs than the team who batted first may be forced to follow-on: to take their second innings immediately after their first. The follow-on can be enforced by the team ...

. In a remarkable rear-guard effort, England did indeed win the match following brilliant performances from

Ian Botham Ian Terence Botham, Baron Botham, (born 24 November 1955) is an English cricket commentator, member of the House of Lords, a former cricketer who has been chairman of Durham County Cricket Club since 2017 and charity fundraiser. Hailed as on ...

and Bob Willis, and Lillee and Marsh duly collected £7,500 (). There has never been any suggestion that the players deliberately underperformed to ensure their bet succeeded; nevertheless, the failure of cricket authorities to censure Lillee and Marsh at the time has led some to suggest that it contributed to the match-fixing scandals of the 1990s and 2000s. Another scandal was Mark Waugh and

Shane Warne Shane Keith Warne (13 September 1969 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian international cricketer, whose career ran from 1991 to 2007. Warne played as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-handed batsman for Victoria, Hampshire and Australi ...

's payments from " John the bookmaker" on a tour of Sri Lanka in 1994. The players had received $4,000 and $5,000 respectively from the bookmaker for pitch and weather information. When the then

Australian Cricket Board Cricket Australia (CA), formerly known as the Australian Cricket Board (ACB), is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in Australia. It was originally formed in 1905 as the 'Australian Board of Control for International Crick ...

found out about the incident in 1995, it fined the players. Nevertheless, the board withheld the information from the general public at the time, who were not informed until 1998. The Australian Cricket Board received widespread criticism for not immediately announcing the scandal. A later report by Rob O'Regan QC concluded that cricketers were not fully informed about the dangers of interacting with bookmakers, and although no further punishment could be given to either Waugh or Warne, in future players should be punished by not only fines, but also by suspensions. The ICC was slow to react, but did eventually in 2000 set up an Anti-Corruption and Security Unit headed by Sir

Paul Condon Paul Leslie Condon, Baron Condon, (born 10 March 1947) is a British retired police officer. He was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1993 to 2000. Education Condon read Jurisprudence at St Peter's College, Oxford and was mad ...

, former head of London's

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

. It claims to have reduced corruption in cricket to a "reducible minimum". During the fourth Test of 2010 Pakistani tour of England, ''

News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national red top tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling English-language newspaper, and at closure still had one ...

'' published a story with allegations that

Mazhar Majeed Mazhar Majeed (born 1975) is a British sporting agent and bookmaker who came under police investigation in 2010 following reports of cricket 'match fixing' after a ''News of the World'' sting operation. On Saturday 28 August 2010, he was arrested ...

and some of the Pakistani players were involved in

spot fixing Spot-fixing is illegal activity in a sport in which a specific aspect of a game, unrelated to the final result but upon which a betting market exists, is fixed in an attempt to ensure a certain result in a proposition bet. Examples include someth ...

. Pakistani players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were later jailed and banned from cricket. In 2013, three cricketers from New Zealand were approached by the ICC in regards to match fixing, later named as

Lou Vincent Lou Vincent (born 11 November 1978) is a former New Zealand cricketer and opening batsman. He has represented New Zealand in Test match, One Day International and Twenty20 International cricket as well as playing for Auckland in New Zealand ...

Chris Cairns Christopher Lance Cairns (born 13 June 1970) is a former New Zealand cricketer and former ODI captain, who played for the New Zealand cricket team as an all-rounder. Cairns finished his Test career with a batting average of 33.53 and a bowling ...

and

Daryl Tuffey Daryl Raymond Tuffey (born 11 June 1978) is a former New Zealand cricketer who represented New Zealand in all formats internationally. Tuffey was born in Milton, Otago, and played domestic first-class cricket for Northern Districts Knights. Tu ...

. In 2014, Vincent admitted to being involved in match fixing.

In popular culture

* The 2009

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

film, '' 99'', starring

Kunal Khemu Kunal Kemmu (born Kunal Ravi Kemmu; 25 May 1983) is an Indian actor who works in Hindi cinema. Early life and background Kunal Ravi Kemmu was born in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India on 25 May 1983 into a Kashmiri Pandit family to actors Ra ...

Boman Irani Boman Irani (born 2 December 1959) is an Indian actor, photographer and voice artist who works predominantly in Hindi cinema he has also worked in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. He has acted in more than a 100 films in his career. Ear ...

Soha Ali Khan Soha Ali Khan Pataudi Khemu (born 4 October 1978) is an Indian actress who has worked in Hindi, Bengali and English films. She is the daughter of veteran actress Sharmila Tagore and former Indian cricket captain Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, and t ...

and Cyrus Broacha, is set in the year 1999, with the India-South Africa match fixing controversy as the backdrop. * The 2008

film, '' Jannat'', directed by

Kunal Deshmukh Kunal Deshmukh is an Indian film director and restaurateur. He grew up in Mumbai, India. Early life and education After finishing his schooling at Arya Vidya Mandir, Bandra, Mumbai and junior college at Jai Hind, Churchgate, he took up an a ...

and starring Emran Hashmi,

Sonal Chauhan Sonal Chauhan (born 16 May 1987) is an Indian actress, singer and model who predominantly works in Telugu and Hindi language films. She made her acting debut with Hindi film ''Jannat'' and her Telugu film debut with ''Rainbow'', both in 2008. ...

and

Javed Sheikh Jawed Sheikh (also spelled Javaid and Javed; born 8 October 1954) is a Pakistani actor, film director and producer who works in Lollywood and Bollywood. He is best known for working in the Hindi films '' Om Shanti Om'', '' My Name Is Anthony ...

is also based on match fixing. *The 2015 Hindi film

Calendar Girls ''Calendar Girls'' is a 2003 British comedy film directed by Nigel Cole. Produced by Touchstone Pictures, it features a screenplay by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, based on a true story of a group of middle-aged Yorkshire women who produ ...

'' some part is based on the betting on the cricket. *The 2016 Hindi film '' Azhar'' is based on the life of Mohd. Azharudhin.

Emraan Hashmi Emraan Anwar Hashmi (; born 24 March 1979) is an Indian actor who appears predominantly in Hindi cinema. Hashmi debuted in 2003 with the crime thriller film '' Footpath'' and subsequently appeared in films include '' Murder'' (2004), '' Kalyug ...

plays his role. *The 2018 Web film ''Inside Edge'' is based on the betting on the domestic league.

References

External links

* {{cite book , url=http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4521&context=theses , title=Doctor of Philosophy Thesis: Organizations of corrupt individuals: a study of corruption in international cricket and the Catholic Church , publisher=

University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (abbreviated as UOW) is an Australian public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney. As of 2017, the university had an enrolment of ...