Cricket: A tale of bribery, murder and match-fixing

By STEVE BOGGAN

LONDON - In India, they called him the man who knew too much. Ashraf Patel was rich and well-connected, a regular fixture at Bombay's glittering Bollywood parties, but it was his connections that may have got him killed.

Not his friendships with diamond dealers, shady businessmen or film stars. Instead, Mr Patel may have been shot in a Bombay street because of his love of betting on cricket.

Cricket's anti corruption boss Sir Paul Condon's investigation into cricket match-fixing uncovered allegations of murder, kidnapping and intimidation.

Tonight (NZT), a year after being appointed by the International Cricket Council, the game's governing body, to look into corruption in the sport, Condon - the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police - will unveil his first report into the investigation many in sport thought they would never see: an inquiry into cheating and greed in the game supposedly played by gentlemen.

Condon's report is believed to say: "I have spoken to people who have been threatened and others who have alleged a murder and a kidnapping linked to cricket corruption."

Mr Patel, 40, was a successful gem dealer and businessman with distribution rights to brands such as Cartier and Tissot.

In Bombay, he would shower gifts on film stars and cricketers ­ held in equally high esteem in India ­ in the hope that they would endorse his products.

And they did. Last April, after his murder, an Indian magazine, The Week, said he had become very close to several cricketers and even accompanied the team to tournaments in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

The cricketing alarm bells started to ring, for Sharjah has become a byword for alleged match-fixing.

Organisers admit it has happened there, and English player Adam Hollioake was once called there in his hotel by a man who offered to "make him very wealthy". Hollioake didn't take up the offer.

The alarm bells rang louder still when police discovered Mr Patel had bookmaking contacts in South Africa, because here the whole match-fixing debacle took its biggest scalp, Hansie Cronje, the squeaky-clean captain of the South African cricket team.

Cronje's admission last year, before a board of inquiry headed by Judge Edwin King, that he took four bribes to fix matches triggered Condon's inquiry.

Cronje was banned for life, and Condon was appointed head of a new seven-man anti-corruption unit dedicated to weeding out cheating and setting in place mechanisms to prevent it.

But his task is enormous. There have been claims and counter-claims of cheating, bribing and fixing in eight of the 10 test-playing nations including England, India, Pakistan, Australia and South Africa.

In Pakistan, test-players Salim Malik and Ata-ur Rehman were banned for life when they were found to have affected matches for the benefit of bookmakers.

In India, Kapil Dev has been accused of involvement, and Cronje told the King inquiry he had taken money from a man introduced to him by Mohammad Azharuddin, former Indian captain.

Azharuddin, also banned for life, was questioned by Bombay police after the shooting of Mr Patel because the two had met two days earlier.

The deputy commissioner of police, Jai Jeet Singh, said: "He will be questioned again and again. This is not a small case. We are working on the match-fixing link. It cannot be ruled out of the murder inquiry."

In England, Alec Stewart, the former national skipper, has denied claims by Mukesh Gupta, the bookmaker who paid Cronje, that he took £5,000 ($16,800) for providing match information.

The England and Wales Cricket Board believe there is no substance to the allegations, but Condon is expected to interview Stewart.

Today's 80-page report is not expected to be a bombshell exposé of individuals or incidents.

It is said to name no one, for legal reasons, but it does highlight concerns that match-fixing continues.

His report will not even say whether the alleged murder did, indeed, involve Mr Patel or other suspected victims in South Africa and India.

Condon and his anti-corruption unit have interviewed many people from all over the world, but they have found hard evidence elusive.

But he believes the root of the practice can be found in county cricket dating back 30 years. "It has been suggested to me that the seeds of corruption in cricket were sown in the Seventies when county and club games in domestic tournaments in England and other countries were allegedly fixed by teams to secure points and league positions," he is understood to say.

Condon has warned players they can run but they cannot hide, so more may yet emerge.

His report adds, "a more insidious and corrosive form of fixing had taken hold on the game" and "there are indications that some players and others are still acting dishonestly and to the order of the bookies".

Condon is said to recommend increasing players' wages ­- adequate in countries such as England, Australia and New Zealand, but poor in Asia -­ to make corruption less attractive.

"That is a good idea," said Stephen Fay, editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly.

"A good cricketer in England can earn about £100,000 ($337,000), which should be enough to ward off temptation. But in India and Pakistan, the wages are very poor, so players are more easily tempted. The problem with that is that corrupt people are always corrupt. They may simply get more greedy."

The rewards for Asian syndicates who try to rig games are understood to be huge, although the amounts players claim they have been offered seem suspiciously low, usually only about £5,000, which suggests larger amounts may not have been disclosed.

But the murdered man certainly loved two things: cricket and money. And he knew too much about one of them.

- INDEPENDENT

Sir Paul Condon's report