I'm confident the match-fixing has been sorted, says ICC chief

Haroon Lorgat tells Stephen Brenkley that his sport is not awash with corruption

(AFP)

The man – some would say the poor sap – charged with running cricket yesterday delivered his view on corruption in the game. Haroon Lorgat said, after a month of frenetic allegations and counter allegations, that it barely exists. "I believe there is no match-fixing," said Lorgat, chief executive of the International Cricket Council. "I am confident the problem has been sorted."

With the feeding frenzy on rigging hardly abating after the end of Pakistan's increasingly contentious tour of England, Lorgat also sought to quash the prevalent opinion that spot-fixing – whereby specific parts of matches are pre-determined either to exploit or at the behest of illegal bookmakers in Asia – is rampant.

"From the experiences I have and hearing from the anti-corruption unit, I don't believe that it is as widespread as people make it out to be," he said. "There could well be isolated instances and we have picked them up. Without hard evidence we cannot act. When we have, we will."

Hardly had Lorgat spoken than Ijaz Butt, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, apologised unreservedly to England for accusing them – a bizarre twist in the story – of fixing a one-day game at The Oval in the NatWest Series this month. Butt flew to London with his legal team yesterday and a joint PCB-England and Wales Cricket Board statement followed shortly after a 90-minute meeting. It lays to rest at least one matter in the sorry saga.

Lorgat said: "The integrity of the game is paramount to us, and I believe we have shown that – with the measures we have put in place and the support we have across the entire spectrum of members who are very clear about keeping the game clean."

Lorgat was in London yesterday ostensibly to parade the World Cup, the ICC's flagship tournament, which will be played in the sub-continent next year. But he had little option except to deal with the issue which has yet again rocked the game to its core in the past five weeks, and seemed satisfied that he and the ICC were able to act independently. He said he did not feel powerless.

"As difficult as this [is] we must confront it," he said. "Fortunately we revised the anti-corruption code last year and that was the machinery which allowed us to act in the fashion that we did. Unless and until you have proved something, you cannot base it on speculation."

There were developments as Salman Butt, one of three players provisionally suspended by the ICC following allegations of misdeeds, appealed against the punishment. His team-mates, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer, still have until 15 October to act. Lorgat seemed relieved that Butt had at last acquired his own lawyer: until yesterday the PCB seemed be fighting the case on the players' behalf, which was never the ICC's intention.

"We were concerned with the role of the PCB in that," said Lorgat. "We have never had a case against the PCB. It's against the individuals." The trio were suspended after allegations in the News of the World that Asif and Aamer, with Butt's collusion as captain, bowled no-balls to order in the fourth Test match at Lord's.

It was alleged in the News of the World that a middle man, Mazhar Majeed, had accepted £150,000 from undercover reporters posing as crooked businessmen, to ensure the players bowled the no-balls at specific moments in the match. Scotland Yard is still investigating.

Lorgat said: "It's a balancing act for the ICC. We're very conscious of not wanting to prejudice a criminal investigation. We've got a disciplinary code, hence the charges, but we respect we cannot interface with any of those individuals."

But the ICC is pursuing its investigation into alleged premeditated scoring patterns in the third one-day international, which Pakistan won. After receiving information from the Sun, the ICC decided to act because what actually happened was close to what the paper was told would happen.

Outraged apparently because he was not informed, Butt then made his charges that it was England who had fixed the match for "enormous amounts of money". The furious England players almost pulled out of the rest of the series but were persuaded to continue, not least because of intervention by the Foreign Office which was concerned that diplomatic relations would be harmed. The ECB immediately sought the apology, which the players now have.

Lorgat clearly hopes the dust can now settle awhile but seems relaxed that the ICC's authority remains in place, a view not shared by some observers. He is clearly starting to suspect that the ICC is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. After instigating an inquiry into The Oval ODI allegations , it stood accused of acting hastily after being accused for years of not acting at all. But Lorgat said there were boxes of evidence, enough to act on – and that the ICC tried several times to contact Pakistan officials.

"We got information that in our view was credible and justified an investigation," he said. "It was a judgment call we had to exercise. It's connecting dots, that is what it's largely about. The difficulty with that one is that we haven't got a named individual yet. There are phone records, other engagements, contact made with characters.

"The scenario of players being approached certainly exists. There is a very deliberate and structured process we go through. We are quite satisfied that the process we go through of making them aware is done very well."

Lorgat is getting closer at least to convincing the world of that.