Cricket: Worms are being drawn to the surface

By DON CAMERON

There is the old custom that when you want live bait for fishing, you drag a rotten old fish over the sand near the high-water mark, and the worms are drawn to the surface.

As the gentlemen of the International Cricket Council and, in fact, the world-wide cricketing community, have found since the Hansie Cronje case became the smelly fish, the worms have wriggled up round the world.

As the ICC people finished their meeting at Lord's this week there was the latest claim from Lloyd Barker, the West Indian umpire, that he had been offered bribes.

One side-effect of all the match-fixing and player/umpire-bribing is that the subcontinent, and especi-ally India, is being regarded as the evil centre of this cricketing underworld.

And it may follow, unless the ICC or its appointees are lucky enough to discover some of the key manipulators come from elsewhere, that the subcontinent will turn the whole argument into a black-white dispute.

If such is the case, the wheel will have gone full circle in less than a decade. In the early 1990s, when South Africa was still an outcast and before the bookmakers and the big-money manipulators brought their evil trade into the game, there was almost a black-white standoff in world cricket.

India and Pakistan were united against South Africa. The West Indies saw sinister (and white) motives for moves to limit bouncers and thus defuse some of the West Indian fast-bowling artillery.

Sri Lanka tended towards supporting their northern neighbours.

Australia, England and New Zealand were the white opposition.

The split remained when South Africa was reinstated, and joined the white group.

Heading toward the allocation of the venue for the 1996 World Cup, it seemed taken as read that England would stage the event. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka banded together. With its vast population, millions of television sets and therefore the promise of high television rights payments, India could see itself (and its neighbours) becoming the money tree of world cricket.

So the three countries went after the 1996 World Cup. They were not exactly secretive. Associate member countries such as Gibraltar were each offered about $300,000 for their ICC vote in favour of the subcontinental venue.

And then, as now, there were suggestions that some individuals, as well as voting countries, were given sweeteners in return for their vote.

This was not match-fixing, but tournament-fixing could be regarded as a first cousin.

And here came the philosophical split. In India and Pakistan, two groups may be competing for a contract. One might offer X amount of money to improve its chances.

The other might offer Y plus. Most likely the Y plus people would get the contract, and just as likely the X people would ruefully congratulate Y plus for being firstest with the mostest.

This is common with those seeking government contracts in many other parts of the world. It was not, until the 1996 World Cup, common in international cricket.

The Pakistan-India-Sri Lanka bid stalled at the ICC. The black-white argument threatened to sunder the organisation of the game. England, to their eternal credit, avoided an escalation of the black v white problem by stepping aside, on the understanding that the 1999 World Cup would be staged in England.

But the damage was done. The white-ants of the money-makers and influence-pedlars and the bookmakers began to gnaw at the foundations of world cricket.

The crumbling crisis has taken time to affect the world game. It will take perhaps as long to cleanse the game, to remove it from being the plaything of what is virtually organised crime.

People will scold the ICC for merely arranging another investigative committee.

The real impact may start with the Cronje inquiry in South Africa. It could well gain more hard facts when the Pakistan judicial inquiry is finally released - the fact that the release was blocked by a former Goverment head suggests it will contain sensitive information.

But we may have to rely on the work of the Indian police for the really hard facts, and for the tough action against the people who have so callously threatened to turn a princely game to the scandalous pursuit of illegal gain.