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SL to probe match-fixing

Sri Lanka's newly elected cricket board Monday announced the setting up of an independent panel to investigate and prevent match fixing in the game.

Board President Thilanga Sumathipala said Sri Lanka had been spared allegations of match fixing, but he wanted to set up a panel that could recommend ways to ensure it did not creep into the game here.

"We want to have a committee that will make recommendations and we hope to publish them and also go to the ICC and ask them to adopt such systems to prevent the fraud of match fixing," Sumathipala said.

He said no specific measures were being taken even as the country prepared to play its 100th Test against Pakistan here on Wednesday.

Five members of the visiting Pakistan team were fined last month after being named in a report on match-fixing in Pakistan. "I am not a policeman who can go round looking for bookies at the grounds," Sumathipala said. "But, I am very proud that our players have never been implicated in this type of fraud."

Questions were raised about Sumathipala's own election here Sunday amid allegations that his family business of horse racing and betting prevented him from holding high office in the cricket board. But Sumathipala eventually won uncontested in a one-horse race after his main challenger withdrew at the last minute.

Sumathipala maintained he was not directly involved in betting and bookies and therefore not disqualified from heading the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka.