JOHN MEHAFFEY, London | Tuesday 2.25am
INTERNATIONAL cricket chiefs gathered behind closed doors at Lord’s on Tuesday to discuss match-fixing allegations threatening the game’s credibility.
Eighteen International Cricket Council (ICC) delegates will meet for two days in an emergency meeting triggered by South African captain Hansie Cronje’s confession that he took money from a bookmaker.
The delegates met in the England Cricket Board’s offices and will not leave the building until Tuesday’s discussions are finished. ICC chief executive David Richards is scheduled to give a news conference at the end of the day’s deliberations.
India is represented by Raj Singh Dungarpar after Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president A.C. Muttiah decided not to attend because of a death in his family.
The meeting is chaired by ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya of India. Representatives of each of the nine test nations are present plus two other heavyweight officials in former ICC president Clyde Walcott from the West Indies and Ali Bacher of South Africa.
Walcott is chairman of the ICC’s cricket committee while Bacher, who is also managing director of the United Cricket Board of South Africa, heads the council’s development committee.
On April 11 Bacher told a news conference in Durban that Cronje had phoned him in the early hours of the morning to say he received money from a local South African and an Indian bookmaker during a triangular series with England and Zimbabwe in January.
Cronje admitted giving information but denied match-fixing.
Four days earlier Delhi police charged Cronje and South Africa team mates Herschelle Gibbs, Pieter Strydom and Nicky Boje with involvement in match-fixing during a one-day series against India in March. The four denied the charges.
Since Bacher’s revelation, there have been a series of claims about match-fixing but little hard proof.
In a television interview on Monday, Richards suggested an amnesty for anybody coming forward with evidence of match-fixing. The Australian was scheduled to open Tuesday’s meeting by presenting a document for discussion.