SOUTH African cricket great Barry Richards has called on the International Cricket Council (ICC) to impose life bans on players found guilty of match fixing. Richards said he was stunned by sacked captain Hansie Cronje’s admission that he accepted money from an Indian bookmaker. Cronje has denied match fixing but Richards said the scandal had seriously tarnished the game’s international image and it was up to the ICC to take action. “It’s hard to know where to go from here from a cricket point of view and a South African cricket point of view, Richards who now lives in Australia told reporters on Wednesday. “If anybody is found guilty of fixing cricket matches, there is nothing else that the world body can do except ban that person for life.” Richards was considered one of the world’s outstanding batsmen of the 1960s and 70s but was restricted to just four test match appearances when South African teams were banned from world sport because of the government’s racist policies. “Obviously it is going to put them in a bit of disarray because there are other players involved and nothing has been said about those as yet,” he said. “At this point in time, to my knowledge, they are still members of the team so that’s going to be a difficult one in itself.”