The clamping down of Lonwabo Tsotsobe by Cricket South Africa's Anti-Corruption Code is yet another reminder that the ugly sceptre of match-fixing continues to loom large over the game. Incidentally, South Africa was in the eye of the storm when the world first learnt of such probabilities in the game.
And in this article, the second of the two-part series, I conclude my chronicle of the saga that first rocked the game's very institutions.
Looking back at the scandal, one wonders how did it all start? When the nexus between bookies and players first came to light in the early '90s, the bets were mostly on getting information about factors that might affect the outcome of the match, like, the condition of the pitch, the playing XI or, a general assessment of the fate of the match. But when the bookies want to influence the outcome of the matches, ‘betting’ turns into ‘match-fixing’.
Betting was always huge all over India, even though it was illegal. And it is no longer confined to just the result of the match, but the stakes change from ball to ball, over to over. Bets can be placed on field placements, bowling changes, the next shot by a batsman.
Individual players, therefore, begin to be influenced to decide in advance how many runs they will score, when they will get out, how they will bowl their overs, how they will place their fielders.
The role of the captain thus became crucial. Thus, the names of Azharuddin, Cronje and, perhaps, Alec Stewart, Brian Lara and Aravinda de Silva all skippers, came up.
The scandal spread its poisonous tentacles all over the subcontinent.
In April 2000, The Sunday Times exposed that three Sri Lankan players were approached by Indian bookies during the 1992 Australian tour of Sri Lanka. The report claimed that Roshan Mahanama, Asanka Gurusinha and Sanath Jayasuriya were offered money for information and match forecasting.
However, the three players reportedly declined the offer as confirmed by the Sri Lankan board.
In May 2000, The Australian Cricket Board (ACB) appointed an independent investigator to probe into allegations of match-fixing but later dismissed a review of the case of Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, who were fined earlier for providing pitch and weather information to bookies on the 1994 tour of Sri Lanka.
In May 2000 itself, after a year-long inquiry, Pakistan’s one-man judicial commission under Justice Qayyum found former captain Saleem Malik and medium-pacer Ata-ur-Rehman guilty of fixing matches and recommended life bans for the two (although the ban on Saleem Malik was overturned in 2008).
Wasim Akram, Mushtaq Ahmed, Waqar Younis, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Akram Raza and Saeed Anwar were all censured and fined.
Later that year in June, the West Indies team management in England refuted allegations that Brian Lara profited from betting on individual performances during matches in a tri-series in South Africa in 1993, but then decided to investigate the charges the next day.
More than a week later, the board gave Lara a clean chit after the bookie allegedly involved signed an affidavit clearing Lara’s name.
In the meantime, in June 2000 itself, back in South Africa, the King Commission enquiry went underway. Former South African cricketer Pat Symcox testified that Cronje made him an offer about "throwing" a match against Pakistan during the 1994-95 season.
He also confirmed that during a team meeting in Mumbai in 1996, Cronje made an offer of $250,000 dollars to throw away a one-dayer. Herschelle Gibbs made the going very difficult for Cronje when he said he accepted an offer from the then-skipper to make less than 20 runs in a one-day match in India earlier in the year for $15,000.
Similarly, seam bowler Henry Williams testified that he was offered $15,000 by Cronje to bowl expensively in a one-day international in India earlier in the year. Pieter Strydom, who had been mentioned in the allegations by Delhi Police, revealed that he was indeed offered money by Cronje before the first Test against India at Mumbai in February.
Jacques Kallis confirmed evidence by Mark Boucher and Lance Klusener that Cronje did make an offer to the three players in a hotel room before the second Test against India in Bangalore in March 2000. After days of shocking revelations during the hearings, Cronje was offered immunity from criminal prosecution in South Africa, if he made a full disclosure about his role in match-fixing.
In his 23-page testimony before the King Commission, Hansie Cronje said his very first exposure to the world of betting and match-fixing was during the One Day International against Pakistan in the Mandela Cup in Cape Town in January 1995, when ‘an Indian or Pakistani who described himself only as John’ offered him about $10,000 for the team to throw the game.
The second time he was approached with an offer was ‘during the 1996 Indian tour’ by one ‘Sunil’ who asked him if he was interested in fixing matches. Cronje told him he was not.
Finally, it was through Azharuddin that Cronje met what he clearly viewed as his nemesis.
In his testimony, Cronje went on to say, “On the evening of the third day of the third Test against India at Kanpur I received a call from Mohammed Azharuddin, who was friendly with several South African players. He called me to a room in the hotel and introduced me to Mukesh Gupta, MK. Azharuddin then left us alone...
“MK asked me if we would give wickets away on the last day of that Test to ensure that we lost. He asked me to speak to the other players and gave me approximately $30,000 in cash to do so. I led him to believe that I would.
“This seemed an easy way to make money but I had no intention of doing anything. I did not speak to any other players and did nothing to influence the match. In the event, however, we lost the Test. I had effectively received money for doing nothing and I rationalised that this was somehow acceptable because I had not actually done anything.”
The other offer made to Cronje during the tour by MK was related to the last ODI. Cronje was asked to throw the match, for which the team was offered $200,000. He was asked to convey the offer to the team ‘which I (he) agreed to do’. It had been a ‘long and arduous tour’, Cronje said, and the team was exhausted with several key players nursing injuries.
When Cronje spoke of the offer to some players beforehand and later at a team meeting on the match eve, the team rejected the offer with some players speaking out strongly against it. However, a few players stayed back after the meeting and were curious to check if the offer could be increased.
Cronje telephoned MK and asked to increase the offer to $300,000. MK was ready to pay $250,000. This new offer was discussed the next morning before the match and rejected once again by the team. (This was the offer Bob Woolmer had talked about back in April 2000.)
Overall, Cronje confessed to taking about $100,000 in bribes from gamblers since 1996, but he claimed that he had never thrown or fixed a match. He was finally led away in tears after his three-day cross-examination by the King Commission ended in Cape Town. He gave evidence clearly and admitted that he accepted money from bookmakers and said his "great passion of the game and for my team-mates'' was matched by "an unfortunate love of money".
Back in India, Mohammed Azharuddin took offence to the comments made by Hansie Cronje. He said, “It is a pre-planned conspiracy to retaliate and counter-attack by the South African authorities after the Indian Government allowed the Delhi police to expose their captain in the match-fixing scandal.”
Speaking to The Hindu, Azhar said that he was innocent and ready to face any investigation by the BCCI. “I treat these comments with contempt,” he added.
The Delhi bookie Mukesh Gupta, a jeweller by trade, who also went by the name John, or MK, while conducting his business soon found out just how ruthless the CBI can be.
Right after Hansie Cronje provided confirmation of Gupta’s involvement through his confession before the King Commission that he was introduced to Gupta by Mohammad Azharuddin at Kanpur in 1996, a red alert was sounded in mid-June that Gupta may try to escape India, and a close watch is kept on the country's airports.
When Gupta went into hiding, the CBI told his family that they are ready to take his 70-year old father into custody if he did not surface. The threat worked. Gupta voluntarily walked into the CBI's office and spilt the beans.
Once he broke down before the CBI, the CBI had sufficient evidence to confront Azharuddin, Manoj Prabhakar, Ajay Jadeja, Ajay Sharma and Nayan Mongia.
In a swift and well-coordinated operation, Indian income tax officials raided the homes of top cricket players and officials across the country, including those of then national coach Kapil Dev, as well as Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, Nayan Mongia and Nikhil Chopra, but nothing suspicious was recovered from the homes.
In September 2000, facing a government inquiry into corruption in cricket, Kapil Dev stepped down as coach of the Indian team. He said, “quitting is not an admission of guilt”.
In October 2000, Azhar crumbled under pressure when the CBI confronted him with evidence of some of his shady connections and reportedly confessed that he fixed three ODIs - the first against South Africa at Rajkot in 1996, the Pepsi Cup match in Sri Lanka in 1997 and Pakistan in 1999.
But then, in an interview, he denied being involved in any such activity. The CBI also revealed that the then Indian captain took help from his teammates Ajay Jadeja and Nayan Mongia for carrying out the fixing activities.
That cut no ice with BCCI, who declared Azhar guilty as charged late in November. Ajay Jadeja, Manoj Prabhakar, Ajay Sharma and former Indian team physio Ali Irani were also brought to book for having links with bookies. Mongia and Kapil Dev were later declared not guilty.
In December 2000, Azhar and Ajay Sharma were suspended for life by BCCI. Jadeja was handed a five-year ban while Prabhakar and Irani were banned from holding a post in Indian cricket for five years.
MK’s confessions had, in the meantime, turned this into an international scandal.
In October 2000, UCBSA imposed a life ban on Hansie Cronje. The ban, which was widely expected, extended to all the UCBSA's related cricket activities as well as that of its affiliates.
In 2002, Hansie Cronje died in a tragic air accident.
In November 2000, the Sri Lankan board appoint a one-man commission to investigate the charges of match-fixing against Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva who were named by MK, and asked for a report within a month.
De Silva was dropped from the squad for South Africa. However, both were cleared of charges in July 2001 due to "inadequate and untested" evidence.
Similarly, in November 2000, the New Zealand Cricket board announce an anti-corruption investigation into allegations by MK that Martin Crowe received money. Crowe was also cleared in July 2001.
England wicketkeeper Alec Stewart, also named by MK, was cleared of allegations in July 2001 that he took money from the bookie in return for providing team and pitch information during England's 1992-93 tour of India.
In August 2004, Kenya's former skipper, Maurice Odumbe, was banned for five years by the Kenyan Cricket Association after being found guilty of receiving money from bookies on multiple occasions.
In India, in January 2003, Jadeja’s ban was overturned by the Delhi High Court, citing no proof of his involvement in match-fixing and in November 2012, the Andhra Pradesh High Court lifted the life ban on Azharuddin, terming it as 'unsustainable'.
After the scandal in the early years of the millennium, there were sporadic reports of match-fixing across the globe and suitable investigations were launched. However, cricket pundits are still sceptical. And who knows? Maybe the next big expose is just around the corner!
Sourabh Mukherjee is the author of the bestselling thriller ‘In the Shadows of Death: A Detective Agni Mitra Thriller’ published by Srishti Publishers and ‘Romance Shorts’ a collection of dark romance short stories.
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