With the recent Ashes controversy joining in the list of corruption charges, ICC has once again woken up. The international body of the sport has been once again rocked back. As the governing body's recently appointed anti-corruption general manager Alex Marshall sets out to investigate a wide assortment of claims made in The Sun newspaper and passed on to the ICC, the ACU is seeking to pivot from the symptoms of corruption - namely spot fixes by players - to its causes, and to see players as partners in the task of addressing it.
Among the very recent names who have been approached with match-fixing commitments are Zimbabwean skipper Graeme Creamer and Pakistan skipper Sarfraz Ahmed. Those who have not been approached in recent times are respective England and Australian skippers, Joe Root and Steve Smith.
Over the years players from different cricketing nations have been banned with corruption charges still the issue has not been uprooted from the game. Recent offers of bribes for illegal activity in the game are believed to have ranged anywhere from US $5,000 to US $150,000, most commonly sitting in the range of US$30-40,000.
Another reason that targeting corruptors would have a more profound effect than exposing players would be to prevent them from establishing relationships with young and impressionable players who can then be trapped into working with fixers as their careers develop. Under-age competitions and the emerging women's game are both sources of concern for the ACU as they are populated with players lacking the years of education and warning drummed into male international cricketers in particular.
"The players, like Cricket Australia, have zero tolerance for behaviour that may impact upon the integrity of the game," an ACA spokesman said. The game of cricket stands on its integrity, which is why it is important that the ICC's multi-jurisdictional investigation should now take its course. The ACA is looking forward to receiving a briefing regarding the ICC's investigation."
With the latest corruption reports circling around it will be interesting to see how does ICC go about their job of finding the real culprits.
