OWN CORRESPONDENT, Sydney | Thursday 9.00am
CRICKET supremo Ali Bacher has alleged that two matches were fixed during last year’s World Cup.
The Australian, newspaper ran a front-page article after an interview with Bacher in which he was said to have accused at least one international umpire of manipulating matches.
”I am as confident as I can be, without having all available evidence for you, that it has been a common practice in world cricket,” Bacher said of match-fixing.
”I don’t have bank accounts or anything like that to prove it, but match-fixing has been the scourge of the game.” Bacher, chief executive of the United Cricket Board, was not directly quoted about match-fixing during the World Cup in Britain or about any corrupt umpires.
The Australian said Bacher’s ”startling revelations” could force the hand of the International Cricket Council at its emergency meeting on match-fixing in London next month. Bacher, a member of the ICC since 1991, said the body had so far failed to tackle the problem.
But he added: ”As this latest crisis in South Africa has shown, it is a global problem. No one country can point the finger at anyone else.”
— Reuters