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Fixing Scandal!!!!!

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
By Nick Hoult

10:30PM BST 14 May 2014


Anti-corruption forces are investigating the most detailed evidence yet of widespread fixing across the cricketing world.


Telegraph Sport can reveal that Lou Vincent, the former New Zealand batsman, has provided officials from the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit with a treasure trove of information about matches which were targeted for spot-fixing and the names of players who were involved.


Domestic matches played by English counties are among those about which Vincent has provided detailed evidence from the period when he was playing for Lancashire and Sussex, along with details of fixing in at least four other countries.


He has also informed them of the details of an approach by another corrupt player to a current international captain, who turned down the offer and reported it to anti-corruption officials.


Investigators from the ICC’s anti-corruption unit are working with detectives employed by cricket boards around the world to piece together a complex case which they believe will emerge as the biggest fixing scandal since the Hansie Cronje affair 14 years ago, and possibly even more significant than that.

Vincent has agreed a plea bargain in the hope of avoiding a criminal prosecution for his involvement in and knowledge of spot-fixing in five or more countries over a four-year period between 2008-2012. He revealed in December he would co-operate with detectives and confessed to an ICC tribunal investigating fixing in Bangladesh earlier this year that he had been approached by an illegal bookmaker.

It is understood the ICC’s anti-corruption police are close to charging a former Pakistan international cricketer based on evidence provided by Vincent. The investigation crosses several international jurisdictions and is expected to take another 12-18 months to complete with anti-corruption officers determined to use the information and land convictions.

Several of his allegations are believed to involve matches played in the now defunct Indian Cricket League, where he said players were offered bribes of money and prostitutes by shadowy figures involved in the tournament. He has also provided names and dates of meetings with fixers which are being cross-referenced by the ICC.

His evidence has laid bare the threat of corruption to Twenty20 competitions in England and elsewhere which interest fixers in Asia when they are screened live on television in India.

Vincent became a roving Twenty20 specialist playing in England, India, Zimbabwe, South Africa and New Zealand when his international career ended in 2007 after 23 Tests and 103 one-day internationals.

He has told anti-corruption police of attempted fixing in the Twenty20 Cup in England when he played for Lancashire and Sussex. He has admitted trying to persuade one Lancashire team-mate to participate in a fix, but the player reported the approach to the authorities. Another county player is believed to have agreed to a fix before later backing out. A 40-over match between Sussex and Kent in 2011 in which Vincent played is being subjected to special scrutiny by the ICC for evidence of corruption.

He has also told investigators of fixing when he played for the Auckland Aces in New Zealand and also when they played in the Twenty20 Champions League tournament in South Africa in October 2012. He has also detailed incidents in the Hong Kong Sixes competition.

A spokesman for the ICC stated the board never comments on anti-corruption matters.

The evidence from Vincent is seen as a valuable method of piecing together patterns of behaviour by fixers and how they target players with gifts and money, and then follow them around the world when they play in different tournaments.

Vincent revealed in December he would co-operate with detectives. “I wish to let everyone know that I am co-operating with an ongoing ICC Anti-Corruption investigation that has been made public,” Vincent said. “This investigation is bound by a number of rules and regulations that mean I am unable to make any further public comment.”

In recent weeks fears emerged in New Zealand, though, that the Vincent investigation was in danger of grinding to a halt over political infighting at the ICC.

Those concerns increased last week when the ICC announced a review of its anti-corruption unit with a view to streamlining its processes. This could have been prompted by doubts over whether the Vincent case will be investigated properly. There are also suggestions his evidence could be put in cold storage due to the political animosity between senior Indian officials and Lalit Modi.

In 2012 Modi was successfully sued for libel in the High Court by Vincent’s former team-mate Chris Cairns for accusations of fixing in the Indian Cricket League.

Since then Cairns’ barrister, Andrew Fitch-Holland, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police and bailed on suspicion of perverting the course of justice in relation to the Modi libel trial. Cairns has also been interviewed by London detectives in New Zealand.

If the Vincent case proves fixing in the ICL then Modi will undoubtedly kick up a political storm. At least one senior investigator at the ICC’s anti-corruption unit is believed to have offered his resignation over perceived political interference in this case, fearing it could fall victim to a power struggle within the board over the future direction of policing cricket.

A reorganisation of the anti-corruption unit was confirmed by the ICC last week after pressure from the three influential countries, England, Australia and India.

Dave Richardson, the chief executive of the ICC, and representatives from the big three nations who now control the board will conduct the review.

Suspicions it will then be watered down and report to the chairman of the board, N Srinivasan, who is the subject of a fixing scandal in India, have prompted widespread alarm within the game.

This has been angrily denied behind the scenes by those involved in the review who insist the plan is to streamline the organisation and improve its communication with individual anti-corruption units set up by national boards. The Vincent case is a test of whether the communication between those different agencies is workable or not.
 
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Fuller Pilch

Hall of Fame Member
Wow.


I don't want to excuse Vincent at all, but I wonder how much the fixing (a) was influenced by his depression and state of mind, and (b) created guilt and exacerbated the depression.
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I remember a banker friend of mine saying, "Sports and actresses are there for the same purpose - to entertain me. I don't mind the booster drugs and boob jobs." Maybe it's time I start thinking like him and add fixing to that list.
 

uvelocity

International Coach
dodgy kiwis. still dont get how they can even participate in match fixing when they have no control over the result of the game. what are they going to lose by more?
 

Howsie

International Captain
Their were rumors about this **** during his last season playing for Auckland, along with a couple of other players. New Zealand cricket did absolutely nothing about it however.
 

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Looking forward to the upcoming NZ-Pakistan series which should end in three low scoring, fairly compelling ties.
 

straw man

Hall of Fame Member
Bloody ozzies, always try to claim their own are NZers when they do something wrong.

#RussellCrowe #LouVincentAdelaide
 

hendrix

Hall of Fame Member
Word is that McCullum was the player who strongly rejecting the fixing offer and reported the incident.
 

SteveNZ

Cricketer Of The Year
Wow.


I don't want to excuse Vincent at all, but I wonder how much the fixing (a) was influenced by his depression and state of mind, and (b) created guilt and exacerbated the depression.
I think you're pretty spot on. Doesn't excuse him as you say, Iain O'Brien battled a lot of demons and I believe Obba would never have involved himself. I would say that Lou is a much more whimsical individual.

I would say there would be some Auckland players pretty filthy about the Champions League campaigns.
 

Binkley

U19 Captain
"...he began fixing in 2008 in the Twenty20 Indian Cricket League for a world-famous former international. We know the identity of the cricketer but cannot name him for legal reasons.

"[After an approach by a bookie Vincent] went to the room of his superstar friend to tell him what had happened. Chillingly, the star is understood to have said ‘you are now working for me’."
"World famous", "superstar". The rest of the article makes pretty clear that this player was a member of Vincent's team (he once refused to talk to Vincent on the team bus after a fix went wrong). Looking at the Chandigarh Lions team for 2007 and 2008 and it seems that there were not an awful lot of superstars in the side.
 

Kippax

Cricketer Of The Year
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cr...yers-following-Lou-Vincent-fixing-claims.html

Vincent has told the ICC that he would use colourful bat handles to signal to his bookie that the fix was on. He has identified 12 games around the world, three of them in England that involved fixing. The Lancashire match against Durham is being studied along with the Sussex versus Kent match on Aug 23, 2011 – a game that has been under suspicion for a long time, and a Twenty20 quarter-final on Aug 8 between Sussex and Lancashire. He has also identified a Champions League match for Auckland Aces against Hampshire in 2012.

He has detailed offers of women, bottles of perfume and says he was paid £40,000 for one of the Sussex fixes.
 
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SteveNZ

Cricketer Of The Year
Think we can all reasonably assume who the purported XXX with the big personality is.

That Champions League stuff really grinds me, if true and a lot of his team-mates may have even stronger feelings. They had a really good side who were capable of going further and if that Hampshire game wasn't the only one, they're entitled to be filthy. Some of those guys were on lower-tier domestic contracts and the cash available for teams moving to the next round was very, very lucrative. If they hear Lou was keener on some rupees, he'll be a very unpopular man.

Surprised this took longer to come out if he was sidling up to team-mates in the hope they'd join him.
 

Kippax

Cricketer Of The Year
Lou Vincent approached me at Lancashire, says Mal Loye - Telegraph

Mal Loye opened the batting in Twenty20 cricket with Vincent in 2008 and was asked to help him organise spot-fixes.

Loye ignored his requests, but only revealed his full story when approached by England and Wales Cricket Board detectives last year who were piecing together the case against Vincent.

“In the beginning [when Vincent first made the approach] I just thought what is going on here?” Loye told Telegraph Sport. “It was a very lonely place. My way of dealing with it was wrong. If it happened now with all the education in place I would have been a lot more informed about approaching the right person to let them know about it. In the end my way of dealing with it was to just ignore him.”

In 2008 anti-corruption education for county players was minimal and there was not a proper structure in place for cricketers to report approaches, even though the failure to do so was an offence.

Loye, who played seven one-day internationals for England, all on the 2006-07 Ashes tour, now regrets not reporting Vincent at the time, but was unaware of the implications of the fixing approaches.
He also feared the impact that reporting Vincent would have on his mental health, with the New Zealander having suffered from depression in the past.

“It is a lot more acceptable now to report approaches,” Loye said. “It now part of everyone’s duty as a player to report, but before it was a dirty word even to be linked in anyway to corruption, even if in a positive way such as you being the one reporting the offence.

“I just did not want any association with it at all. The ECB approached me last year as part of their fixing case and I had put it out of my mind until then. My career as a cricketer was done and dusted. Then when I was asked about it [by the ECB] the emotion and details all came out.

“When I put them down on paper there were some incredible stories and a sense of relief came over me. I love the game and for it to be treated in this way by Louie was completely unacceptable. I hoped it [Vincent fixing] was just a one-off but clearly it was not.”

In 2008 Loye was organising a benefit year which failed to gain momentum and he struggled for form too. He moved to Northamptonshire, the county where he started his career, the following year before retiring in 2011. He is now a cricket coach at Wellingborough School.

Loye will not face any retrospective disciplinary action for failing to report Vincent, as the authorities have accepted the culture was not in place six years ago. It is similar to the way Essex players laughed off Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria’s attempt to fix matches, as described in court in 2012, where the word used was “banter”.

Loye is one of several former county colleagues of Vincent’s who have been interviewed by the ECB and provided testimony which backs up his own confession.
 

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