Match-fixing is waning: Condon

Attempts to fix international cricket matches are declining but radical changes are still needed to stamp the problem out, the sport's anti-corruption chief Sir Paul Condon said on Monday.

Condon said the scandal sparked by an Indian police report on match-fixing which named several Test players had been a turning point in the battle against cricket corruption.

"Many of the approaches (by bookmakers) on players and umpires have now stopped," Condon told a news conference at the end of a visit to Sri Lanka as part of a probe into charges against Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva, two of the players named in the Indian report.

But Condon said cricket still has much to do tackle the problem and an interim report he would submit to the International Cricket Council in June would have "several radical, but commonsense suggestions".

"My ambition is to make it so tough for the few bad guys still left that the risks are not worth it," Condon said, but he declined to give details of the report.

Condon, the former head of London's Metropolitan Police, was appointed after sacked South African captain Hansie Cronje, also named in the Indian police report, admitted in April last year that he took money from an Indian bookmaker.

The scandal triggered an avalanche of match-fixing allegations worldwide and Condon said the investigations that followed had uncovered a great deal of information about how bookmakers worked.

He said the proliferation of cricket matches and of the one-day game in particular remained a serious challenge to the anti-corruption drive.

"Hardly a day goes by without a match being played somewhere in the world that's worth betting on," said Condon, adding that match-fixing had been going on for about 20 years.

Condon, whose probe will continue until the World Cup in South Africa in 2003, said he took heart from the fact that only a few players had been caught in the web spun by bookmakers.

"Most players still want skill, courage and luck to determine the outcome of matches, not mobile phones and grubby deals," he said.

Mail Cricket Editor