Fixing Cricket
02:33
STEVE WAUGH, CAPTAIN, AUSTRALIAN CRICKET TEAM: I hope it's going to be judged as the era of the
great Australian cricket side.
But perhaps it won't be.
It might be known as the bribery and match-fixing years.
03:01
LIZ JACKSON: When Hansie Cronje was forced to confess he'd been on the take from the match-fixing
bookies, cricket-lovers were stunned.
HANSIE CRONJE: I do like money.
I'm not trying to get away from that.
LIZ JACKSON: Is there more to come out before this is over?
STEVE WAUGH: I think, pretty obviously, the answer to that is yes.
03:21
IMRAN KHAN, FMR CAPTAIN, PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: I mean, we are just scratching at the surface.
Obviously there's a lot more involvement of other players in it.
03:30
LIZ JACKSON: Tonight on Four Corners, the sorry story of how the corruption of cricket has been rampant for a decade, while those who are responsible for policing the game did nothing but cover it up.
MALCOLM GRAY, PRESIDENT, INT. CRICKET COUNCIL: We should have acted sooner.
We should have acted with greater alacrity.
And we should have done it better.
We didn't.
04:08
LIZ JACKSON: We travel from a bookies' den in Pakistan to the International Cricket Council in London to
find out who has been fixing the games and who should be fixing cricket.
04:35
It's the morning of the final of the Asia Cup in Dacca to be played between Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Already the fans are hovering outside the hotel, hoping for a glimpse of their favourite players.
Right across the Indian subcontinent, cricketing heroes are bigger than movie stars.
04:57
STEVE WAUGH: Yeah, well, they're fanatical over there.
I mean, there's a billion people and sport is almost like a religion.
And they've got their heroes and they live, I guess, their life through their cricket.
I mean, a lot of people are living in poverty there and that is one escape for them.
So it's much more than a sport over there.
It's like a way of life.
05:17
LIZ JACKSON: But the crowds are down in numbers and the television audience has dropped.
In the days and weeks preceding the tournament here, top players in India, Pakistan and South Africa have all been named as match-fixers.
Three of the cricketers who are on the bus today have been accused by their team-mates of being involved.
While the players and officials have known for years that corruption has been rife, the fans have been played for mugs.
05:46
HARSHA BHOGLE, CRICKET COMMENTATOR: And that's why they are feeling cheated.
And they're saying, "Hang on, we showered our love on our cricketers and we showered affection and we gave them everything we had to them.
We stopped going to work.
We didn't do exams, maybe.
And we all stood up and watched television.
And were we made a fool of?"
06:08
LIZ JACKSON: The most serious allegations of corruption in modern cricket history have centred on the
Pakistan team.
Rumours of match-fixing started 20 years ago when Asif Iqbal was captain of the team.
He was accused back then of betting on and then faking the outcome of the toss.
There were no bookies to be seen hanging around at this year's Asia Cup final.
The word was they're now lying low.
But they've been a well-known feature, especially at one-day games, for the past 10 years.
06:49
MAJID KHAN, FMR MANAGER, PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: Wherever the one-day cricket is being played, something is going on.
LIZ JACKSON: One-day cricket is important?
MAJID KHAN: One-day cricket is important simply because more bets are placed in one-day cricket and it's easy to manipulate.
07:07
LIZ JACKSON: The Pakistanis pray together before the final starts and swear to play their best.
Past captains have adopted some unique strategies over the years to stop the bookies seducing the players
into throwing a match, including making the team bet on themselves to win.
07:33
IMRAN KHAN: Well, it was in '89, it was a final in Dubai, And it was between Australia and Pakistan.
And just one player called me up in the middle of the night and said, "Look, four of your players have sold out to the bookies."
So next day, I just told the team that, "Look, this is what I've heard.
I'll be watching everyone play very carefully.
And if I think someone is underperforming, you know, there'll be strong action."
Plus, I said we should put all our money which we had won so far on ourselves, at even odds -- at, you know, either double or nothing.
08:21
LIZ JACKSON: Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first.
We were told it was a sign of their confidence that they are the better team.
08:38
They are aware now that the world is watching them, looking for suspicious run-outs, easy catches dropped,
even just underperforming on the day.
Because just two weeks before this game, Justice Qayyum's report into match-fixing was finally released.
The judge recommended fines for eight players who have represented Pakistan in their national team.
Harsha Bhogle was up in the commentary box.
09:06
HARSHA BHOGLE: It would've been at the back of their minds, very much.
Certainly for the senior players, because they wouldn't want to be seen to be throwing away their wickets.
Even a normal dismissal would make them look culpable.
09:20
LIZ JACKSON: Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum's inquiry into match-fixing was held in the High Court of Lahore in 1998.
Previous inquiries have been regarded as token or a whitewash.
Justice Qayyum heard from over 50 players and officials.
The judge explained to us that while he had enough evidence to recommend banning two players for life,
where the evidence was not sufficient, he recommended fines.
It was touch-and-go for cricket superstar Wasim Akram.
He was fined $12,000 and the judge recommended that he be banned from ever captaining the side again.
10:06
JUDGE QAYYUM, HIGH COURT JUDGE, PAKISTAN: All of them were saying that, "He is involved, he is involved."
And then I had to ask myself, "If everybody is saying so, then why they should not be believed?"
LIZ JACKSON: Why do you think those players made those allegations, your own team-mates?
10:24
WASIM AKRAM, FMR CAPTAIN, PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: The culture we come from you guys, white, won't understand.
There's a lot of jealousy factor there.
And people -- it's not just --
..different groups got together from different angles just to finish one cricketer's or one sportsman's career.
That's what exactly happened with me as far as myself's concerned.
People like, supposedly, Aamer Sohail who spoke against me.
10:55
LIZ JACKSON: Aamer Sohail was one of Wasim Akram's team-mates who accused him variously of deliberately bowling badly, feigning illness and paying team-mates to underperform.
11:06
AAMER SOHAIL, FMR VICE CAPT., PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: If he says that we were jealous of his ability, then he was wrong.
It's not -- nothing personal.
It's just something which is --
..which was bad and we thought it shouldn't be done.
We spoke about it.
It was -- it wasn't personal.
11;24
LIZ JACKSON: He seems so cool and confident now when we saw him in Dacca, as if he were untouchable.
AAMER SOHAIL: Well, the thing is, if you keep on getting away with so many things, then you are untouchable, aren't you?
11:40
LIZ JACKSON: We put the accusations made direct to Wasim Akram.
Have you ever tried to induce a player to perform badly?
WASIM AKRAM: Never.
LIZ JACKSON: Ever deliberately bowled no-balls or wide?
WASIM AKRAM: No, and I used to do a lot of no-balls a couple of years ago, generally.
I had a problem with no-balls.
Otherwise, no.
LIZ JACKSON: Ever feigned illness to avoid a match?
WASIM AKRAM: No.
I would never do such a thing.
I always play unless --
I have been diabetic and still playing at this level and never complained about anything, never came out of the game.
LIZ JACKSON: And ever underperformed for money?
12:10
WASIM AKRAM: No.
Never did.
LIZ JACKSON: That's the full list.
WASIM AKRAM: That is the full list.
Thank you.
12:19
LIZ JACKSON: The players who were banned for life were former fast bowler Ata-ur-Rehman and the now-notorious former Pakistani captain, Salim Malik.
Salim Malik is seen here offering to fix the Asia Cup match that we saw for the modest sum of £100,000.
MAN SPEAKING ON 'NEWS OF THE WORLD' TAPE, (TRANSLATION): How does this match-fixing work? How many players do you have?
12?
12:50
LIZ JACKSON: This tape was secretly recorded three months ago by the British scandal sheet 'News of the World'.
Their reporter posed as a businessman looking for easy money.
Salim Malik explains that you only need five or six players to be in on the scam.
MAN ON 'NEWS OF THE WORLD' TAPE, (TRANSLATION): Will six players agree to such a scam?
SALIM MALIK ON 'NEWS OF THE WORLD' TAPE, (TRANSLATION): They'll agree.
They all played with me and we've sat together and done it before.
We know who's up for it.
13:23
LIZ JACKSON: Salim Malik still denies that he is a match-fixer.
One of the things that makes it difficult when you deny that you've had involvement personally in match-fixing are the 'News of the World' tapes because we see you there on television saying, "It will be very easy for me to fix a match.
The players will agree.
We've all sat together and done it before."
We've seen you say that.
13:51
SALIM MALIK, FMR CAPTAIN, PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: I didn't say anything.
LIZ JACKSON: But there's film.
Is it you on the film?
SALIM MALIK: No.
LIZ JACKSON: It's not you.
SALIM MALIK: (Speaks Urdu) They made that film.
LIZ JACKSON: But it's -- what?
an actor?
Not you?
SALIM MALIK: I don't know who's there.
LIZ JACKSON: It looks like you.
SALIM MALIK: It looks like me, but it's not me.
LIZ JACKSON: It sounds like you.
SALIM MALIK, (TRANSLATION): They can -- it's the computers.
This is the computer age -- they can do anything.
14:30
LIZ JACKSON: It was the former vice-captain of the Pakistan team, wicket-keeper Rashid Latif, who first blew the whistle on his captain Salim Malik back in 1994.
14:43
He deserves the credit for forcing the match-fixing issue into the public domain and was rewarded by being dropped from the team.
Rashid Latif now runs a free cricket clinic for talented youngsters who can't afford to pay for coaching.
15:00
MAJID KHAN: He's the most important person in Pakistan to bring this matter to the public so he was removed and, ever since, he's been out of the team.
LIZ JACKSON: And that's because, in your view, he blew the whistle on match-fixing?
MAJID KHAN: Yes, yes.
15:18
LIZ JACKSON: Rashid Latif told the story of how, in 1994, he was offered $25,000 by Salim Malik to help lose the fifth one-day match against New Zealand to be played in Christchurch the following day.
He refused to be involved.
The next morning, after he took two catches, his captain, Salim Malik, came over to the stumps to reprimand him.
15:42
RASHID LATIF, FMR VICE CAPT., PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: Next day, I hold two catches --
catches off bowling of Waqar Younis.
In between the innings, Salim Malik came to me and said, "You -- you drop some catches."
LIZ JACKSON: He's telling you, "Don't catch them, drop them"?
RASHID LATIF: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:07
LIZ JACKSON: It was in October of the same year -- 1994 -- when Australia toured Pakistan that Salim Malik
offered Shane Warne $200,000 for him and Tim May to bowl badly on the last day of the first Test in Karachi.
Three weeks later, Malik sought out Mark Waugh to see if he would organise four or five Australians to throw the upcoming one-day match in Rawalpindi.
The players declined the offer, told the Australian Cricket Board, who told the International Cricket Council.
But they all decided to keep the story from the public.
16:43
GRAHAM HALBISH, FMR CEO, AUSTRALIAN CRICKET BOARD: Cricket is very traditional and very traditional in -- in much preferring not to air its linen in public.
It's always preferred to deal with matters behind closed doors, you know, rightly or wrongly.
But that is effectively the way the game has been administered over a long period of time.
17:03
LIZ JACKSON: The following fax, which only surfaced four weeks ago, shows just how keen the ICC was to keep the Salim Malik story a secret.
It was written by the CEO, David Richards, to the Pakistan Cricket Board on 13 February, 1995.
He urges the Pakistanis to be discreet: "Always bearing in mind the damage to the image of cricket if allegations were made public in any way."
"The fact," he goes on to say, "that no story had been written after the tour gave credence to this chosen course of action."
As of four weeks ago, Malcolm Gray is David Richards's new boss.
17:46
MALCOLM GRAY: Obviously, it's going to be bad for the game.
All these allegations are shocking for the game, so that's a pretty good call.
But we cannot keep anything quiet or under the table or under the hat.
It's ridiculous!
You people in the journalistic world are too good for us.
18:07
LIZ JACKSON: When Justice Qayyum was finally taking evidence against Salim Malik, Shane Warne provided a sworn affidavit.
Mark Waugh and Mark Taylor gave evidence in person in Lahore.
They swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth but chose not to mention Australia's own dirty little secret -- that Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, the two main witnesses against Salim Malik, had themselves taken thousands of dollars from a bookie one month before Salim Malik approached them.
The International Cricket Council knew but also kept this information to itself.
18:47
You would have known when Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were giving evidence to the Qayyum Inquiry that their evidence would be very compromised by the fact that it would later be revealed that they themselves had taken money from bookies?
18:57
DAVID RICHARDS, CEO, INT. CRICKET COUNCIL: I don't think this is a line of questioning I particularly want to spend my time going into.
It's historical.
19:03
LIZ JACKSON: The Waugh/Warne story was broken at the end of 1998.
Four years after they'd taken a total of US$9,000 from a bookie named John, the players finally fronted up to the press and the public.
They said that all they'd given in return for the money was information about the weather, the pitch and team morale.
19:43
It later emerged that Mark Waugh dealt with the bookie on 10 separate occasions over a five-month period from five different countries.
19:53
IMRAN KHAN: I really like both Shane Warne and Mark Waugh because I think they're great cricketers.
But it's now, with hindsight, it makes no sense.
Why would the bookies just give money to anyone, you know, for just giving pitch report, you know?
And maybe -- maybe they did.
But that inquiry --
the whole thing is now in doubt.
Everyone -- I mean, if I'm in doubt, surely the entire cricketing public is in doubt about the whole affair.
20:25
STEVE WAUGH: Look, I'm as confident as I can be.
No-one can be 100 per cent certain.
I can say, as certain as I am, that there's nothing involving Australian players in bribery or match-fixing that will come out and see us in a bad light.
LIZ JACKSON: But you could be surprised?
STEVE WAUGH: Well, I mean, anyone can be surprised.
I was surprised with Hansie Cronje.
20:46
JOURNALIST, FILE TAPE: But there was, of course, another question.
Why had the Australian Cricket Board kept this quiet for so long?
20:55
LIZ JACKSON: David Richards at the International Cricket Council had been told but kept it secret.
When did you plan to tell the public?
DAVID RICHARDS: It wasn't my duty.
The line of --
Don't --
The line of responsibility through this was from the people who ran the Australian cricket team to the Australian Cricket Board.
21:14
LIZ JACKSON: At that time of the cover-up, Malcolm Gray was on the Australian Cricket Board.
Did you support the decision?
MALCOLM GRAY: No, I --
That would be unfair on my colleagues.
It is very easy for me --
No, I'm not --
That's unfair of me.
There was a majority decision taken to carry out the action that was carried out.
It was wrong.
There's no doubts about that -- it was absolutely wrong and silly, but it's easy to say that in hindsight.
That was the decision that was taken at the time, in that environment.
And that was some years ago.
It's a different environment than it is today.
21:47
LIZ JACKSON: Do you think that compromises your statement of resolve that these things will be dealt with openly?
MALCOLM GRAY: No.
No, not at all.
The --
Damn it.
That was a good question.
No, certainly, not at all.
22:11
LIZ JACKSON: It was before this match during the Singer series in Colombo in 1994 that Waugh and Warne were paid the US$9000 by the Indian bookie John.
While it's safe to say that most matches are not, in fact, fixed, every now and then a series comes up where it appears it's on for young and old.
22:34
IMRAN KHAN: Around that time, the bookies went wild.
And the players were involved in it.
22:49
LIZ JACKSON: Australia went on to win this game, which is hardly surprising, because a bookie named Salim Pervez told the Qayyum Inquiry that he'd paid the Pakistanis Salim Malik and Mushtaq Ahmed $100,000 to lose it.
Steve Waugh says he could tell at the time that something was wrong.
23:15
STEVE WAUGH: I've played 30 years and I know when, you know, things aren't quite right.
I remember bowling in that game and taking 3/14.
And I don't normally take 3/14 off 10 overs to start with, so that was a bit suspicious.
But, yeah, it was just the way that the opposition were playing.
A couple of players in particular weren't --
..didn't appear to be playing as if they normally would.
23:38
LIZ JACKSON: So what did you do at the end of the match?
STEVE WAUGH: We celebrated -- we won.
23:45
LIZ JACKSON: Wasim Akram was in the losing team.
You didn't find it suspicious?
He said the Pakistan team just collapsed in a way that everybody at the time felt was suspicious.
WASIM AKRAM: Pakistan team always collapse.
Steve should know that.
We always collapse, we always do.
(Clears throat) Excuse me.
We always collapse and this is -- this is --
..this is, I think, beauty of the Pakistan side.
Either do really well and either when they're doing well they suddenly collapse.
That is part of the culture as well, generally.
24:13
LIZ JACKSON: But evidence was given, wasn't it, to the Qayyum report by a bookie -- Salim Pervez -- that he paid money for that game to be dropped?
WASIM AKRAM: But, again, I think -- the commission should -- if somebody's giving information -- the commission should know the background of a person who is doing --
..who is giving the information.
24:33
LIZ JACKSON: The person, Salim Pervez, was once a cricketer in Pakistan's national team, back in 1981.
We tracked him down in the red-light district of Lahore, where he told us, yes, he'd gone to Sri Lanka with a bag of money provided by a high-profile Pakistani businessman -- the real match-fixer.
For legal reasons, we can't disclose his name.
24:58
SALIM PERVEZ: I talked with players -- with Mushtaq and Malik.
They asked me, "You stay here.
I will deal with you after a few days when the match is beginning."
LIZ JACKSON: Right.
SALIM PERVEZ: I stay there about two months and they agreed with me to fix the match.
LIZ JACKSON: They agreed with you to fix the match?
SALIM PERVEZ: Yes.
LIZ JACKSON: So, what do you say to Salim Pervez?
25:23
SALIM MALIK, (TRANSLATION): Salim Pervez lives in the red-light area.
I request that you visit his house and then judge for yourselves whether he can afford to offer money to anybody.
He has spent two years in jail in a murder case.
How can he afford to pay others when he can't afford to eat?
25:48
LIZ JACKSON: It was no surprise when Salim Pervez didn't turn up for the interview we'd arranged for later.
He's still involved in some shady stuff.
But not far away from where we found him, a group of small-time bookies were running an illegal betting shop -- one of the thousands that operate across the subcontinent during every single game.
26:14
They were taking bets on a Pakistan/Sri Lanka match while the game was being played in Colombo.
When the bets come in, they're recorded on the tape recorder so there's no arguments later about the payouts.
26:29
You can place a bet on anything from who wins the toss to who'll get the next six.
But the serious betting here is on the outcome of the game.
And how much money would be passing through a room like this?
26:39
On a match like this, how much money would be bet?
BOOKIE, (TRANSLATION): We deal with two, four, five, seven lakhs rupees (A$6450-A$22580).
26:51
LIZ JACKSON: The odds are fixed by a syndicate who run many shops like this and as the game progresses and the odds change, they phone in to let these bookies know what rate they should be offering.
27:07
The guns are there more to ward off rival syndicates, rather than a shoot-out with the police.
They are, after all, paying the police a cut of the take.
The police know you're here and don't mind?
BOOKIE, (TRANSLATION): They take it (money) monthly.
27:22
LIZJACKSON: These bookies claim they're not privy to the inside information about when a match is fixed.
27:29
But sometimes you must think that looks suspicious?
BOOKIE, (TRANSLATION): If a match is fixed, small bookies don't know.
big bookies do know and ruin the smaller ones.
27:41
LIZ JACKSON: When we ask if they're afraid of the people who are behind this, we finally never get an answer.
They'd prefer not to say.
28:12
Once you start looking for who's behind the small-time front-line bookies, you're told to go to India, where the biggest of the criminal syndicates are based in Mumbai -- more commonly known outside India by its old colonial name of Bombay.
28:30
MAJID KHAN: It all originates in India because the bookies and the people who are approaching cricketers and umpires come from India.
LIZ JACKSON: And why is that?
MAJID KHAN: I think the money in India is enormous.
28:51
LIZ JACKSON: Mumbai is the financial capital of India.
It's where vast sums of money change hands in finance-broking, film-funding, real estate and it's where the black economy is at its greatest.
It's where the big criminal gangs that they also call the 'mafia' run the drugs and the bookies and the cricket.
29:12
With tens of millions of punters, the money involved is huge.
The Radio Club is a popular haunt of the more affluent bookies, like Mr Ram Dandekar.
29:24
Do the bookies here pay a percentage of their profits to the mafia?
RAM DANDEKAR, PRESIDENT, HORSE RACING BOOKIES ASS., MUMBAI: Not percentage.
There is a fixed amount.
LIZ JACKSON: A fixed amount?
RA DANDEKAR: Fixed amount per match to the police and to the mafia.
LIZ JACKSON: Every -- every cricket match, that's the way it works?
RAM DANDEKAR: Every cricket match.
29:40
LIZ JACKSON: What sort of sum would that be?
RAM DANDEKAR: About two lakhs of rupees per match. (A$8,000)
LIZ JACKSON: And if they don't pay that money?
RAM DANDEKAR; Then you face the problem, you can get shot, you can get stabbed, you can get kidnapped, you can get extortion, all kinds of things like that.
29:57
LIZ JACKSON: Mr Dandekar can admit he's a bookie because horseracing is the one sport in India that it's legal to bet on.
But he knows about cricket as well.
30:08
RAM DANDEKAR: If people are saying those who are responsible and sitting on particular positions, that they were not aware about that match-fixing and that things are going wrong in the cricket till Hansie Cronje's affair, they are hypocrites.
This was brought to the police's knowledge in Bombay 24 years ago, when India-Pakistan match was played in Calcutta where even the toss was fixed.
30:41
LIZ JACKSON: The Bombay police have been a source for journalists covering the match-fixing story for years.
They've known from phone taps who's been offering and who's been taking the money.
But neither the Indian Cricket Board nor the government has seemed to want to know.
31:00
Six weeks ago, a journalist working for the web site Tehelka secretly recorded this off-the-record briefing with the former commissioner of crime in Bombay, Rakesh Maria.
He's telling the journalist when match-fixing here started in earnest.
31:18
RAKESH MARIA: According to the source, things started when Gavaskar was the captain.
The system was very developed when Kapil Dev became the captain and peaked when Azharuddin became the captain.
31:35
LIZ JACKSON: Rakesh Maria shows the journalist transcripts of phone taps from the mid-1990s.
RAKESH MARIA: It is there, it is match-fixing.
See, at that time it was Rs 20-25 lakhs per player.
31:51
LIZ JACKSON: That's around $90,000 a player and as Rakesh Maria explains, the players then use the money that they're paid to lose to bet on the other team to win.
JOURNALIST: So you have incidents of the players also betting on the matches they were involved in?
Something you know, something along those lines?
RAKESH MARIA: Yes.
32:14
HARSHA BHOGLE: There have been stories that the Mumbai police were in possession of tapes as far back as 1995.
And the general impression was that maybe they were not authorised to carry out the investigations and so, though they had the tapes, they were not releasing them.
And I remember writing about it as back as '97 when it sort of started to gain momentum, all this, saying that, look, if they have the tapes, why don't they come out with them?
32:37
LIZ JACKSON: Rakesh Maria went on to name four Indian cricketers as being involved at the time of the Titan Cup.
32:56
LIZ JACKSON: The cricketers named have all denied that they've ever been involved.
..,…, ans …, are still in the national team.
33:08
When did you get a sense that matches were being fixed?
VISHA BANDHI GUPTA, INCOME TAX COMMISSIONER: Well, I got the sense that the matches were getting fixed was only about six months ago.
33:19
LIZ JACKSON: Six months ago, the government announced a tax amnesty scheme, promising people that they could declare their ill-gotten gains without fear of penalty or disclosure.
Several cricketers chose to declare huge sums of money that they'd had earned on the black.
As a senior income tax commissioner, Mr Vishwa Gupta was privy to that information.
33:42
VISHWA GUPTA: We have a very leading cricket player -- I don't want to name him because it will violate my official position.
We became aware that he could be in possession of something like, oh --
200 close of wealth, which in normal terms would mean US$50 million and we were very clear that he had no access to such income officially or through, you know, sources like advertising or, you know, money that you get paid.
Then we started getting this feeling that all this money had actually accrued through fixing matches.
We still don't have the conclusive evidence of that.
34:22
LIZ JACKSON: And was he the only cricketing -- ?
VISHWA GUPTA: Many names are floating, you know, we've suspected --
LIZ JACKSON: How many Indian cricket players did you suspect?
VISHWA GUPTA: We suspect about five of them.
34:34
LIZ JACKSON: It has since emerged that Mr Gupta’s 50 million dollar man is Mohammed ----- As a lover of cricket, Vishwa Gupta is a disappointed man.
34:46
What about the particular names that you came across?
I mean, former cricketing captains -- were they -- ?
Was that a disillusionment for you?
VISHWA GUPTA: A great disillusionment.
Some of the names like -- which are still there -- Azharuddin and, you know, Kapil Dev.
Sometimes they say it all started during Gavaskar's time.
- yeah we have some reports thast his wife used to go to casinos in Nepal to gamble..and we have reports in from Katmandhu and that.
35:17
LIZ JACKSON: When the Board of Control of Cricket in India, the Indian cricket officials, assure the International Cricket Council that they will do something about match-fixing and corruption in cricket in India, do you think they will?
35:31
VISHWA GUPTA: No.
I think they're as corrupt and as criminal as those who are involved in match-fixing.
I am formally of the view that no match-fixing can take place without the connivance of the board officials.
They're quite aware.
35:48
LIZ JACKSON: For the richest cricket board in the world, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has modest accommodation in the centre of Mumbai.
The amount of money generated by cricket in India is simply staggering.
Just the rights to televise cricket to this cricket-mad country, with a population of over a billion people, runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The last thing they need is for the game and their stars to be tainted.
36:17
When the cricket board was forced to hold its match-fixing inquiry in 1997, it gave the game and its players and officials a clean bill of health.
It was a green light for match-fixers to go for broke.
36:32
HARSHA BHOGLE: I think the problem arose because the Board of Control for Cricket in India actually set up their commission of inquiry which was very amateurish and very embarrassing to us as Indians.
I remember reading that report and saying the whole world's going to read this and as an Indian, I'm ashamed of reading that report because it was factually incorrect and it was supposed to have been signed by a chief justice of the Indian Supreme Court.
And we'd like to believe that a chief justice of the Indian Supreme Court would do a better job than that.
36:59
LIZ JACKSON: India's report was completed in 1997 and it was sent to the International Cricket Council's Code of Conduct Committee -- Lord Griffiths, Sir Oliver Popplewell and Justice Albie Sachs.
37:11
They finally got round to reading it two years later and thought it was fine.
(Interview): That code of conduct committee, of course, looked at India's report into corruption and declared that that was a good report.
It said that it interviewed every possible witness and it gave it the thumbs up in terms of a good report into corruption in cricket.
Everybody you speak to in India says that report is a whitewash.
MALCOLM GRAY: I suspect your language is a bit extravagant there about "thumbs up" and "gave it the -- "
LIZ JACKSON: Well, I've got it here.
MALCOLM GRAY: You've got what here?
LIZ JACKSON: The report.
Lord Griffiths says, "We give this the thumbs up."
I doubt --
LIZ JACKSON: "We can see no grounds upon which his conclusion could be challenged.
We are satisfied that the chief justice saw and heard every witness he could reasonably expect to contribute to his inquiry."
They didn't call the police commissioner in Bombay --
38:01
MALCOLM GRAY: So he didn't say "thumbs up".
All I was commenting on was your language -- it was a bit extravagant.
They reviewed the Indian report and decided that, no, that they didn't wish to take it any further.
You've got to look at the timing of all that.
38:19
LIZ JACKSON: What does that tell you about the weakness of the process?
MALCOLM GRAY; You've got to look at the timing of all that.
Nobody understood the depth and breadth of the problem until recent months.
38:32
LIZ JACKSON: The Indian authorities have now briefed their Central Bureau of Investigation to sort out the corruption in cricket.
Five days ago, tax officials raided the homes of cricketers Azharuddin, Mongia, Prabhakar, Jadeja, Chopra and cricket icon Kapil Dev.
(CLIP) : they met me this morning, and they said that they would like to have some more clarification….
38:54
They also searched the home of former Indian cricket official and outgoing president of the ICC Jagmohan Dalmiya.
But Mr Gupta has learned to be sceptical about what will be achieved.
39:09
VISHWA GUPTA: I have my serious doubts, to be very frank with you, because the reason for that is that the criminal mafia that runs match-fixing and betting is also involved in other criminal activities in India.
Not that everybody who is in cricket betting is also involved in, but large overlap -- by and large, the same people who are involved in narcotics trafficking, which is a very big industry in India, far bigger than the cricket.
39:37
LIZ JACKSON: Are they too big for the government to take on?
VISHWA GUPTA: Past experience shows that all these people have gotten away.
I mean, I won't --
I can't predict the future.
39:49
LIZ JACKSON: Two weeks ago, Vishwa Gupta was suspended for breaching his public service obligations not to disclose information he gained from his job.
Meanwhile, over in London, it's summer and the cricket season is under way.
40:09
Some Australian players have taken contracts with English county teams.
They're playing here at Lord's, the traditional home of cricket.
40:26
Behind the Lord's scoreboard is the clock tower, the headquarters of cricket's governing body, the International Cricket Council.
Four weeks ago, the ICC held its annual general meeting.
Here the delegates from the cricket-playing countries around the world are about to discuss how the money generated by the game should be split.
40:51
The ICC has just signed a TV rights deal worth a cool A$1 billion.
40:59
MAJID KHAN: If the game becomes tainted and the big names become tainted, less money will flow in -- the sponsors will withdraw their sponsorship from cricket.
So perhaps that was one of the important reasons for not looking into this matter.
LIZ JACKSON: That's why they swept it under the carpet?
MAJID KHAN; I'm sure about it.
41:22
LIZ JACKSON: Part of the problem for the ICC has been that no one country has wanted their match-fixing problems exposed, and every country gets a vote on what should be done.
41:34
As a result, the ICC appears to be incapable of taking a consistent strong stance.
When they held their emergency anti-corruption meeting in May, the ICC resolved that no-one who'd had any association with bookmaking could be on the cricket board of any member country.
41:53
Sri Lanka then proceeded to elect as their president Mr Thilanga Sumathipala, a man whose family business has been bookmaking.
Fortunately for him, the ICC is already backing off.
42:07
MALCOLM GRAY; If a man's been whatever in the past, legitimately, well, that's -- you can't stop somebody from their past.
LIZ JACKSON: So if someone's --
MALCOLM GRAY: Hang on!
MALCOLM GRAY: Now we're really just talking hypothetically.
LIZ JACKSON: No, we're not --
MALCOLM GRAY; No, no.
If somebody's committed murder and done the time you can't just hold that against him for the rest of his life, if the judgment has been done.
42:29
LIZ JACKSON: But given the state of cricket at the moment, given the crisis that there is that's resulted from betting and the corruption that surrounds the bookmakers in cricket, it will now be OK for someone to have been a bookmaker and be the president of the cricket board, as far as the ICC is concerned?
42:44
MALCOLM GRAY: Liz, I've already told you, it is a complex issue.
42:49
LIZ JACKSON: But as the ICC prepares to face the press at the end of this year's annual general meeting, they know that they can no longer just duck the issue of corruption.
The Hansie Cronje affair has finally forced the cricketing world to acknowledge that the problem is universal.
It's only been days since three South Africans admitted to being on the take.
43:11
IMRAN KHAN; For a while it seemed it was only Pakistan that was involved.
Now, it -- it seems as if India has -- has been involved in it.
There are some suggesting Sri Lanka is involved in it, because they are now starting an inquiry.
Australia -- involved in it and South Africa.
So, therefore --
And then there were some English players who were casting allegations, you know.
So, therefore, it's -- it's clearly a universal problem.
And that's how ICC should have dealt with it.
Now they are trying to do it.
43:44
LIZ JACKSON: The ICC has brought along its new weapon against corruption, a retired police commissioner -- an Oxford man.
It's also day one in the job for the incoming ICC president, Malcolm Gray.
43:59
MALCOLM GRAY, PRESS CONFERENCE: I'm pleased to announce the appointment of the ICC director of the anti-corruption unit in the person of Sir Paul Condon.
Sir Paul Condon originally was an Oxford University man on a police scholarship, rising to become the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police here in London.
4421
SIR PAUL CONDON, PRESS CONFERENCE: I've only been asked in the last few days to become involved.
I needed to be satisfied --
LIZ JACKSON: But Sir Paul will have no police powers.
No power to subpoena witnesses?
MALCOLM GRAY: No.
LIZ JACKSON: No power to examine financial records?
MALCOLM GRAY: Well, no.
Well, it depends what financial records you're talking about in that we have a resolution that all boards around the world have to cooperate with the ICC and --
44:46
LIZ JACKSON: But in terms of players, no power to examine the financial --
MALCOLM GRAY: No, not their personal ones, no, and that's the same with any body in the community.
LIZ JACKSON: Are you concerned that this will make it very difficult for this anti-corruption unit to actually uncover any corruption?
MALCOLM GRAY: Well, it won't be easy.
45:03
LIZ JACKSON: While the new faces at the ICC acknowledge the size of the problem, some of the faces haven't changed.
David Richards remains as the ICC's chief executive officer and he remains in denial.
45:18 (Interview)
During the last seven years corruption in the game has flourished.
You've been the chief executive officer of the ICC during that last seven years.
Do you think that you should take responsibility for any of that and, in view of that, should stand down?
45:32
DAVID RICHARDS: Let me say that what's been evident through that period of time has been a lot of allegations that have not been proven.
It's only been in recent time with proper processes that have been put in place by the boards concerned or the governments in certain countries where there've been the types of inquiries that have been necessary.
And I think it's a matter of great regret for the sport that some of these allegations have been proven.
But the vast number of allegations have been innuendo and they have not been proven.
46:00
LIZ JACKSON: But that's not really an answer to the question.
DAVID RICHARDS: I'm sorry.
LIZ JACKSON: When we were in the Indian subcontinent a number of ex-players and ex-officials put it to us that, in view of the way that corruption has flourished in the game while you've been the CEO of the ICC, that you should stand down.
DAVID RICHARDS; Well, I reject that because, 'A', it's not proven that corruption has flourished.
46:19
LIZ JACKSON: When I spoke to your chief executive officer, David Richards, yesterday, he denied that in the last seven years corruption in cricket had flourished.
Is he the right person for the job?
MALCOLM GRAY: Well, I didn't hear him say that, but all I can say is Blind Freddy can tell you that it's flourished in the last seven years.
There's no doubts about that.
46:47
LIZ JACKSON: The young enthusiasts for the game of cricket now combine that enthusiasm with doubt and cynicism.
And for those who grew up in different times, that hurts.
HARSHA BHOGLE: I grew up adoring Sunil Gavaskar.
15-year-olds today adore Sachin Tendulkar.
I got an email once saying, "Please, please tell me that Sachin Tendulkar is not involved because if he is, what is left in life?"
47:15
STEVE WAUGH; From my point of view, I hope it's going to be judged as the era of the great Australian cricket side.
But perhaps it won't be.
It might be known as the bribery and match-fixing years, in much the same way Bodyline was or World Series Cricket or the rebel tours.
47:33
MALCOLM GRAY: The thing that makes me angry is that saying, "It's not cricket" -- maybe it's an old-fashioned saying -- is now no longer true.
And that's awful.
02:33
STEVE WAUGH, CAPTAIN, AUSTRALIAN CRICKET TEAM: I hope it's going to be judged as the era of the
great Australian cricket side.
But perhaps it won't be.
It might be known as the bribery and match-fixing years.
03:01
LIZ JACKSON: When Hansie Cronje was forced to confess he'd been on the take from the match-fixing
bookies, cricket-lovers were stunned.
HANSIE CRONJE: I do like money.
I'm not trying to get away from that.
LIZ JACKSON: Is there more to come out before this is over?
STEVE WAUGH: I think, pretty obviously, the answer to that is yes.
03:21
IMRAN KHAN, FMR CAPTAIN, PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: I mean, we are just scratching at the surface.
Obviously there's a lot more involvement of other players in it.
03:30
LIZ JACKSON: Tonight on Four Corners, the sorry story of how the corruption of cricket has been rampant for a decade, while those who are responsible for policing the game did nothing but cover it up.
MALCOLM GRAY, PRESIDENT, INT. CRICKET COUNCIL: We should have acted sooner.
We should have acted with greater alacrity.
And we should have done it better.
We didn't.
04:08
LIZ JACKSON: We travel from a bookies' den in Pakistan to the International Cricket Council in London to
find out who has been fixing the games and who should be fixing cricket.
04:35
It's the morning of the final of the Asia Cup in Dacca to be played between Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Already the fans are hovering outside the hotel, hoping for a glimpse of their favourite players.
Right across the Indian subcontinent, cricketing heroes are bigger than movie stars.
04:57
STEVE WAUGH: Yeah, well, they're fanatical over there.
I mean, there's a billion people and sport is almost like a religion.
And they've got their heroes and they live, I guess, their life through their cricket.
I mean, a lot of people are living in poverty there and that is one escape for them.
So it's much more than a sport over there.
It's like a way of life.
05:17
LIZ JACKSON: But the crowds are down in numbers and the television audience has dropped.
In the days and weeks preceding the tournament here, top players in India, Pakistan and South Africa have all been named as match-fixers.
Three of the cricketers who are on the bus today have been accused by their team-mates of being involved.
While the players and officials have known for years that corruption has been rife, the fans have been played for mugs.
05:46
HARSHA BHOGLE, CRICKET COMMENTATOR: And that's why they are feeling cheated.
And they're saying, "Hang on, we showered our love on our cricketers and we showered affection and we gave them everything we had to them.
We stopped going to work.
We didn't do exams, maybe.
And we all stood up and watched television.
And were we made a fool of?"
06:08
LIZ JACKSON: The most serious allegations of corruption in modern cricket history have centred on the
Pakistan team.
Rumours of match-fixing started 20 years ago when Asif Iqbal was captain of the team.
He was accused back then of betting on and then faking the outcome of the toss.
There were no bookies to be seen hanging around at this year's Asia Cup final.
The word was they're now lying low.
But they've been a well-known feature, especially at one-day games, for the past 10 years.
06:49
MAJID KHAN, FMR MANAGER, PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: Wherever the one-day cricket is being played, something is going on.
LIZ JACKSON: One-day cricket is important?
MAJID KHAN: One-day cricket is important simply because more bets are placed in one-day cricket and it's easy to manipulate.
07:07
LIZ JACKSON: The Pakistanis pray together before the final starts and swear to play their best.
Past captains have adopted some unique strategies over the years to stop the bookies seducing the players
into throwing a match, including making the team bet on themselves to win.
07:33
IMRAN KHAN: Well, it was in '89, it was a final in Dubai, And it was between Australia and Pakistan.
And just one player called me up in the middle of the night and said, "Look, four of your players have sold out to the bookies."
So next day, I just told the team that, "Look, this is what I've heard.
I'll be watching everyone play very carefully.
And if I think someone is underperforming, you know, there'll be strong action."
Plus, I said we should put all our money which we had won so far on ourselves, at even odds -- at, you know, either double or nothing.
08:21
LIZ JACKSON: Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first.
We were told it was a sign of their confidence that they are the better team.
08:38
They are aware now that the world is watching them, looking for suspicious run-outs, easy catches dropped,
even just underperforming on the day.
Because just two weeks before this game, Justice Qayyum's report into match-fixing was finally released.
The judge recommended fines for eight players who have represented Pakistan in their national team.
Harsha Bhogle was up in the commentary box.
09:06
HARSHA BHOGLE: It would've been at the back of their minds, very much.
Certainly for the senior players, because they wouldn't want to be seen to be throwing away their wickets.
Even a normal dismissal would make them look culpable.
09:20
LIZ JACKSON: Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum's inquiry into match-fixing was held in the High Court of Lahore in 1998.
Previous inquiries have been regarded as token or a whitewash.
Justice Qayyum heard from over 50 players and officials.
The judge explained to us that while he had enough evidence to recommend banning two players for life,
where the evidence was not sufficient, he recommended fines.
It was touch-and-go for cricket superstar Wasim Akram.
He was fined $12,000 and the judge recommended that he be banned from ever captaining the side again.
10:06
JUDGE QAYYUM, HIGH COURT JUDGE, PAKISTAN: All of them were saying that, "He is involved, he is involved."
And then I had to ask myself, "If everybody is saying so, then why they should not be believed?"
LIZ JACKSON: Why do you think those players made those allegations, your own team-mates?
10:24
WASIM AKRAM, FMR CAPTAIN, PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: The culture we come from you guys, white, won't understand.
There's a lot of jealousy factor there.
And people -- it's not just --
..different groups got together from different angles just to finish one cricketer's or one sportsman's career.
That's what exactly happened with me as far as myself's concerned.
People like, supposedly, Aamer Sohail who spoke against me.
10:55
LIZ JACKSON: Aamer Sohail was one of Wasim Akram's team-mates who accused him variously of deliberately bowling badly, feigning illness and paying team-mates to underperform.
11:06
AAMER SOHAIL, FMR VICE CAPT., PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: If he says that we were jealous of his ability, then he was wrong.
It's not -- nothing personal.
It's just something which is --
..which was bad and we thought it shouldn't be done.
We spoke about it.
It was -- it wasn't personal.
11;24
LIZ JACKSON: He seems so cool and confident now when we saw him in Dacca, as if he were untouchable.
AAMER SOHAIL: Well, the thing is, if you keep on getting away with so many things, then you are untouchable, aren't you?
11:40
LIZ JACKSON: We put the accusations made direct to Wasim Akram.
Have you ever tried to induce a player to perform badly?
WASIM AKRAM: Never.
LIZ JACKSON: Ever deliberately bowled no-balls or wide?
WASIM AKRAM: No, and I used to do a lot of no-balls a couple of years ago, generally.
I had a problem with no-balls.
Otherwise, no.
LIZ JACKSON: Ever feigned illness to avoid a match?
WASIM AKRAM: No.
I would never do such a thing.
I always play unless --
I have been diabetic and still playing at this level and never complained about anything, never came out of the game.
LIZ JACKSON: And ever underperformed for money?
12:10
WASIM AKRAM: No.
Never did.
LIZ JACKSON: That's the full list.
WASIM AKRAM: That is the full list.
Thank you.
12:19
LIZ JACKSON: The players who were banned for life were former fast bowler Ata-ur-Rehman and the now-notorious former Pakistani captain, Salim Malik.
Salim Malik is seen here offering to fix the Asia Cup match that we saw for the modest sum of £100,000.
MAN SPEAKING ON 'NEWS OF THE WORLD' TAPE, (TRANSLATION): How does this match-fixing work? How many players do you have?
12?
12:50
LIZ JACKSON: This tape was secretly recorded three months ago by the British scandal sheet 'News of the World'.
Their reporter posed as a businessman looking for easy money.
Salim Malik explains that you only need five or six players to be in on the scam.
MAN ON 'NEWS OF THE WORLD' TAPE, (TRANSLATION): Will six players agree to such a scam?
SALIM MALIK ON 'NEWS OF THE WORLD' TAPE, (TRANSLATION): They'll agree.
They all played with me and we've sat together and done it before.
We know who's up for it.
13:23
LIZ JACKSON: Salim Malik still denies that he is a match-fixer.
One of the things that makes it difficult when you deny that you've had involvement personally in match-fixing are the 'News of the World' tapes because we see you there on television saying, "It will be very easy for me to fix a match.
The players will agree.
We've all sat together and done it before."
We've seen you say that.
13:51
SALIM MALIK, FMR CAPTAIN, PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: I didn't say anything.
LIZ JACKSON: But there's film.
Is it you on the film?
SALIM MALIK: No.
LIZ JACKSON: It's not you.
SALIM MALIK: (Speaks Urdu) They made that film.
LIZ JACKSON: But it's -- what?
an actor?
Not you?
SALIM MALIK: I don't know who's there.
LIZ JACKSON: It looks like you.
SALIM MALIK: It looks like me, but it's not me.
LIZ JACKSON: It sounds like you.
SALIM MALIK, (TRANSLATION): They can -- it's the computers.
This is the computer age -- they can do anything.
14:30
LIZ JACKSON: It was the former vice-captain of the Pakistan team, wicket-keeper Rashid Latif, who first blew the whistle on his captain Salim Malik back in 1994.
14:43
He deserves the credit for forcing the match-fixing issue into the public domain and was rewarded by being dropped from the team.
Rashid Latif now runs a free cricket clinic for talented youngsters who can't afford to pay for coaching.
15:00
MAJID KHAN: He's the most important person in Pakistan to bring this matter to the public so he was removed and, ever since, he's been out of the team.
LIZ JACKSON: And that's because, in your view, he blew the whistle on match-fixing?
MAJID KHAN: Yes, yes.
15:18
LIZ JACKSON: Rashid Latif told the story of how, in 1994, he was offered $25,000 by Salim Malik to help lose the fifth one-day match against New Zealand to be played in Christchurch the following day.
He refused to be involved.
The next morning, after he took two catches, his captain, Salim Malik, came over to the stumps to reprimand him.
15:42
RASHID LATIF, FMR VICE CAPT., PAKISTAN CRICKET TEAM: Next day, I hold two catches --
catches off bowling of Waqar Younis.
In between the innings, Salim Malik came to me and said, "You -- you drop some catches."
LIZ JACKSON: He's telling you, "Don't catch them, drop them"?
RASHID LATIF: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:07
LIZ JACKSON: It was in October of the same year -- 1994 -- when Australia toured Pakistan that Salim Malik
offered Shane Warne $200,000 for him and Tim May to bowl badly on the last day of the first Test in Karachi.
Three weeks later, Malik sought out Mark Waugh to see if he would organise four or five Australians to throw the upcoming one-day match in Rawalpindi.
The players declined the offer, told the Australian Cricket Board, who told the International Cricket Council.
But they all decided to keep the story from the public.
16:43
GRAHAM HALBISH, FMR CEO, AUSTRALIAN CRICKET BOARD: Cricket is very traditional and very traditional in -- in much preferring not to air its linen in public.
It's always preferred to deal with matters behind closed doors, you know, rightly or wrongly.
But that is effectively the way the game has been administered over a long period of time.
17:03
LIZ JACKSON: The following fax, which only surfaced four weeks ago, shows just how keen the ICC was to keep the Salim Malik story a secret.
It was written by the CEO, David Richards, to the Pakistan Cricket Board on 13 February, 1995.
He urges the Pakistanis to be discreet: "Always bearing in mind the damage to the image of cricket if allegations were made public in any way."
"The fact," he goes on to say, "that no story had been written after the tour gave credence to this chosen course of action."
As of four weeks ago, Malcolm Gray is David Richards's new boss.
17:46
MALCOLM GRAY: Obviously, it's going to be bad for the game.
All these allegations are shocking for the game, so that's a pretty good call.
But we cannot keep anything quiet or under the table or under the hat.
It's ridiculous!
You people in the journalistic world are too good for us.
18:07
LIZ JACKSON: When Justice Qayyum was finally taking evidence against Salim Malik, Shane Warne provided a sworn affidavit.
Mark Waugh and Mark Taylor gave evidence in person in Lahore.
They swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth but chose not to mention Australia's own dirty little secret -- that Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, the two main witnesses against Salim Malik, had themselves taken thousands of dollars from a bookie one month before Salim Malik approached them.
The International Cricket Council knew but also kept this information to itself.
18:47
You would have known when Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were giving evidence to the Qayyum Inquiry that their evidence would be very compromised by the fact that it would later be revealed that they themselves had taken money from bookies?
18:57
DAVID RICHARDS, CEO, INT. CRICKET COUNCIL: I don't think this is a line of questioning I particularly want to spend my time going into.
It's historical.
19:03
LIZ JACKSON: The Waugh/Warne story was broken at the end of 1998.
Four years after they'd taken a total of US$9,000 from a bookie named John, the players finally fronted up to the press and the public.
They said that all they'd given in return for the money was information about the weather, the pitch and team morale.
19:43
It later emerged that Mark Waugh dealt with the bookie on 10 separate occasions over a five-month period from five different countries.
19:53
IMRAN KHAN: I really like both Shane Warne and Mark Waugh because I think they're great cricketers.
But it's now, with hindsight, it makes no sense.
Why would the bookies just give money to anyone, you know, for just giving pitch report, you know?
And maybe -- maybe they did.
But that inquiry --
the whole thing is now in doubt.
Everyone -- I mean, if I'm in doubt, surely the entire cricketing public is in doubt about the whole affair.
20:25
STEVE WAUGH: Look, I'm as confident as I can be.
No-one can be 100 per cent certain.
I can say, as certain as I am, that there's nothing involving Australian players in bribery or match-fixing that will come out and see us in a bad light.
LIZ JACKSON: But you could be surprised?
STEVE WAUGH: Well, I mean, anyone can be surprised.
I was surprised with Hansie Cronje.
20:46
JOURNALIST, FILE TAPE: But there was, of course, another question.
Why had the Australian Cricket Board kept this quiet for so long?
20:55
LIZ JACKSON: David Richards at the International Cricket Council had been told but kept it secret.
When did you plan to tell the public?
DAVID RICHARDS: It wasn't my duty.
The line of --
Don't --
The line of responsibility through this was from the people who ran the Australian cricket team to the Australian Cricket Board.
21:14
LIZ JACKSON: At that time of the cover-up, Malcolm Gray was on the Australian Cricket Board.
Did you support the decision?
MALCOLM GRAY: No, I --
That would be unfair on my colleagues.
It is very easy for me --
No, I'm not --
That's unfair of me.
There was a majority decision taken to carry out the action that was carried out.
It was wrong.
There's no doubts about that -- it was absolutely wrong and silly, but it's easy to say that in hindsight.
That was the decision that was taken at the time, in that environment.
And that was some years ago.
It's a different environment than it is today.
21:47
LIZ JACKSON: Do you think that compromises your statement of resolve that these things will be dealt with openly?
MALCOLM GRAY: No.
No, not at all.
The --
Damn it.
That was a good question.
No, certainly, not at all.
22:11
LIZ JACKSON: It was before this match during the Singer series in Colombo in 1994 that Waugh and Warne were paid the US$9000 by the Indian bookie John.
While it's safe to say that most matches are not, in fact, fixed, every now and then a series comes up where it appears it's on for young and old.
22:34
IMRAN KHAN: Around that time, the bookies went wild.
And the players were involved in it.
22:49
LIZ JACKSON: Australia went on to win this game, which is hardly surprising, because a bookie named Salim Pervez told the Qayyum Inquiry that he'd paid the Pakistanis Salim Malik and Mushtaq Ahmed $100,000 to lose it.
Steve Waugh says he could tell at the time that something was wrong.
23:15
STEVE WAUGH: I've played 30 years and I know when, you know, things aren't quite right.
I remember bowling in that game and taking 3/14.
And I don't normally take 3/14 off 10 overs to start with, so that was a bit suspicious.
But, yeah, it was just the way that the opposition were playing.
A couple of players in particular weren't --
..didn't appear to be playing as if they normally would.
23:38
LIZ JACKSON: So what did you do at the end of the match?
STEVE WAUGH: We celebrated -- we won.
23:45
LIZ JACKSON: Wasim Akram was in the losing team.
You didn't find it suspicious?
He said the Pakistan team just collapsed in a way that everybody at the time felt was suspicious.
WASIM AKRAM: Pakistan team always collapse.
Steve should know that.
We always collapse, we always do.
(Clears throat) Excuse me.
We always collapse and this is -- this is --
..this is, I think, beauty of the Pakistan side.
Either do really well and either when they're doing well they suddenly collapse.
That is part of the culture as well, generally.
24:13
LIZ JACKSON: But evidence was given, wasn't it, to the Qayyum report by a bookie -- Salim Pervez -- that he paid money for that game to be dropped?
WASIM AKRAM: But, again, I think -- the commission should -- if somebody's giving information -- the commission should know the background of a person who is doing --
..who is giving the information.
24:33
LIZ JACKSON: The person, Salim Pervez, was once a cricketer in Pakistan's national team, back in 1981.
We tracked him down in the red-light district of Lahore, where he told us, yes, he'd gone to Sri Lanka with a bag of money provided by a high-profile Pakistani businessman -- the real match-fixer.
For legal reasons, we can't disclose his name.
24:58
SALIM PERVEZ: I talked with players -- with Mushtaq and Malik.
They asked me, "You stay here.
I will deal with you after a few days when the match is beginning."
LIZ JACKSON: Right.
SALIM PERVEZ: I stay there about two months and they agreed with me to fix the match.
LIZ JACKSON: They agreed with you to fix the match?
SALIM PERVEZ: Yes.
LIZ JACKSON: So, what do you say to Salim Pervez?
25:23
SALIM MALIK, (TRANSLATION): Salim Pervez lives in the red-light area.
I request that you visit his house and then judge for yourselves whether he can afford to offer money to anybody.
He has spent two years in jail in a murder case.
How can he afford to pay others when he can't afford to eat?
25:48
LIZ JACKSON: It was no surprise when Salim Pervez didn't turn up for the interview we'd arranged for later.
He's still involved in some shady stuff.
But not far away from where we found him, a group of small-time bookies were running an illegal betting shop -- one of the thousands that operate across the subcontinent during every single game.
26:14
They were taking bets on a Pakistan/Sri Lanka match while the game was being played in Colombo.
When the bets come in, they're recorded on the tape recorder so there's no arguments later about the payouts.
26:29
You can place a bet on anything from who wins the toss to who'll get the next six.
But the serious betting here is on the outcome of the game.
And how much money would be passing through a room like this?
26:39
On a match like this, how much money would be bet?
BOOKIE, (TRANSLATION): We deal with two, four, five, seven lakhs rupees (A$6450-A$22580).
26:51
LIZ JACKSON: The odds are fixed by a syndicate who run many shops like this and as the game progresses and the odds change, they phone in to let these bookies know what rate they should be offering.
27:07
The guns are there more to ward off rival syndicates, rather than a shoot-out with the police.
They are, after all, paying the police a cut of the take.
The police know you're here and don't mind?
BOOKIE, (TRANSLATION): They take it (money) monthly.
27:22
LIZJACKSON: These bookies claim they're not privy to the inside information about when a match is fixed.
27:29
But sometimes you must think that looks suspicious?
BOOKIE, (TRANSLATION): If a match is fixed, small bookies don't know.
big bookies do know and ruin the smaller ones.
27:41
LIZ JACKSON: When we ask if they're afraid of the people who are behind this, we finally never get an answer.
They'd prefer not to say.
28:12
Once you start looking for who's behind the small-time front-line bookies, you're told to go to India, where the biggest of the criminal syndicates are based in Mumbai -- more commonly known outside India by its old colonial name of Bombay.
28:30
MAJID KHAN: It all originates in India because the bookies and the people who are approaching cricketers and umpires come from India.
LIZ JACKSON: And why is that?
MAJID KHAN: I think the money in India is enormous.
28:51
LIZ JACKSON: Mumbai is the financial capital of India.
It's where vast sums of money change hands in finance-broking, film-funding, real estate and it's where the black economy is at its greatest.
It's where the big criminal gangs that they also call the 'mafia' run the drugs and the bookies and the cricket.
29:12
With tens of millions of punters, the money involved is huge.
The Radio Club is a popular haunt of the more affluent bookies, like Mr Ram Dandekar.
29:24
Do the bookies here pay a percentage of their profits to the mafia?
RAM DANDEKAR, PRESIDENT, HORSE RACING BOOKIES ASS., MUMBAI: Not percentage.
There is a fixed amount.
LIZ JACKSON: A fixed amount?
RA DANDEKAR: Fixed amount per match to the police and to the mafia.
LIZ JACKSON: Every -- every cricket match, that's the way it works?
RAM DANDEKAR: Every cricket match.
29:40
LIZ JACKSON: What sort of sum would that be?
RAM DANDEKAR: About two lakhs of rupees per match. (A$8,000)
LIZ JACKSON: And if they don't pay that money?
RAM DANDEKAR; Then you face the problem, you can get shot, you can get stabbed, you can get kidnapped, you can get extortion, all kinds of things like that.
29:57
LIZ JACKSON: Mr Dandekar can admit he's a bookie because horseracing is the one sport in India that it's legal to bet on.
But he knows about cricket as well.
30:08
RAM DANDEKAR: If people are saying those who are responsible and sitting on particular positions, that they were not aware about that match-fixing and that things are going wrong in the cricket till Hansie Cronje's affair, they are hypocrites.
This was brought to the police's knowledge in Bombay 24 years ago, when India-Pakistan match was played in Calcutta where even the toss was fixed.
30:41
LIZ JACKSON: The Bombay police have been a source for journalists covering the match-fixing story for years.
They've known from phone taps who's been offering and who's been taking the money.
But neither the Indian Cricket Board nor the government has seemed to want to know.
31:00
Six weeks ago, a journalist working for the web site Tehelka secretly recorded this off-the-record briefing with the former commissioner of crime in Bombay, Rakesh Maria.
He's telling the journalist when match-fixing here started in earnest.
31:18
RAKESH MARIA: According to the source, things started when Gavaskar was the captain.
The system was very developed when Kapil Dev became the captain and peaked when Azharuddin became the captain.
31:35
LIZ JACKSON: Rakesh Maria shows the journalist transcripts of phone taps from the mid-1990s.
RAKESH MARIA: It is there, it is match-fixing.
See, at that time it was Rs 20-25 lakhs per player.
31:51
LIZ JACKSON: That's around $90,000 a player and as Rakesh Maria explains, the players then use the money that they're paid to lose to bet on the other team to win.
JOURNALIST: So you have incidents of the players also betting on the matches they were involved in?
Something you know, something along those lines?
RAKESH MARIA: Yes.
32:14
HARSHA BHOGLE: There have been stories that the Mumbai police were in possession of tapes as far back as 1995.
And the general impression was that maybe they were not authorised to carry out the investigations and so, though they had the tapes, they were not releasing them.
And I remember writing about it as back as '97 when it sort of started to gain momentum, all this, saying that, look, if they have the tapes, why don't they come out with them?
32:37
LIZ JACKSON: Rakesh Maria went on to name four Indian cricketers as being involved at the time of the Titan Cup.
32:56
LIZ JACKSON: The cricketers named have all denied that they've ever been involved.
..,…, ans …, are still in the national team.
33:08
When did you get a sense that matches were being fixed?
VISHA BANDHI GUPTA, INCOME TAX COMMISSIONER: Well, I got the sense that the matches were getting fixed was only about six months ago.
33:19
LIZ JACKSON: Six months ago, the government announced a tax amnesty scheme, promising people that they could declare their ill-gotten gains without fear of penalty or disclosure.
Several cricketers chose to declare huge sums of money that they'd had earned on the black.
As a senior income tax commissioner, Mr Vishwa Gupta was privy to that information.
33:42
VISHWA GUPTA: We have a very leading cricket player -- I don't want to name him because it will violate my official position.
We became aware that he could be in possession of something like, oh --
200 close of wealth, which in normal terms would mean US$50 million and we were very clear that he had no access to such income officially or through, you know, sources like advertising or, you know, money that you get paid.
Then we started getting this feeling that all this money had actually accrued through fixing matches.
We still don't have the conclusive evidence of that.
34:22
LIZ JACKSON: And was he the only cricketing -- ?
VISHWA GUPTA: Many names are floating, you know, we've suspected --
LIZ JACKSON: How many Indian cricket players did you suspect?
VISHWA GUPTA: We suspect about five of them.
34:34
LIZ JACKSON: It has since emerged that Mr Gupta’s 50 million dollar man is Mohammed ----- As a lover of cricket, Vishwa Gupta is a disappointed man.
34:46
What about the particular names that you came across?
I mean, former cricketing captains -- were they -- ?
Was that a disillusionment for you?
VISHWA GUPTA: A great disillusionment.
Some of the names like -- which are still there -- Azharuddin and, you know, Kapil Dev.
Sometimes they say it all started during Gavaskar's time.
- yeah we have some reports thast his wife used to go to casinos in Nepal to gamble..and we have reports in from Katmandhu and that.
35:17
LIZ JACKSON: When the Board of Control of Cricket in India, the Indian cricket officials, assure the International Cricket Council that they will do something about match-fixing and corruption in cricket in India, do you think they will?
35:31
VISHWA GUPTA: No.
I think they're as corrupt and as criminal as those who are involved in match-fixing.
I am formally of the view that no match-fixing can take place without the connivance of the board officials.
They're quite aware.
35:48
LIZ JACKSON: For the richest cricket board in the world, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has modest accommodation in the centre of Mumbai.
The amount of money generated by cricket in India is simply staggering.
Just the rights to televise cricket to this cricket-mad country, with a population of over a billion people, runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The last thing they need is for the game and their stars to be tainted.
36:17
When the cricket board was forced to hold its match-fixing inquiry in 1997, it gave the game and its players and officials a clean bill of health.
It was a green light for match-fixers to go for broke.
36:32
HARSHA BHOGLE: I think the problem arose because the Board of Control for Cricket in India actually set up their commission of inquiry which was very amateurish and very embarrassing to us as Indians.
I remember reading that report and saying the whole world's going to read this and as an Indian, I'm ashamed of reading that report because it was factually incorrect and it was supposed to have been signed by a chief justice of the Indian Supreme Court.
And we'd like to believe that a chief justice of the Indian Supreme Court would do a better job than that.
36:59
LIZ JACKSON: India's report was completed in 1997 and it was sent to the International Cricket Council's Code of Conduct Committee -- Lord Griffiths, Sir Oliver Popplewell and Justice Albie Sachs.
37:11
They finally got round to reading it two years later and thought it was fine.
(Interview): That code of conduct committee, of course, looked at India's report into corruption and declared that that was a good report.
It said that it interviewed every possible witness and it gave it the thumbs up in terms of a good report into corruption in cricket.
Everybody you speak to in India says that report is a whitewash.
MALCOLM GRAY: I suspect your language is a bit extravagant there about "thumbs up" and "gave it the -- "
LIZ JACKSON: Well, I've got it here.
MALCOLM GRAY: You've got what here?
LIZ JACKSON: The report.
Lord Griffiths says, "We give this the thumbs up."
I doubt --
LIZ JACKSON: "We can see no grounds upon which his conclusion could be challenged.
We are satisfied that the chief justice saw and heard every witness he could reasonably expect to contribute to his inquiry."
They didn't call the police commissioner in Bombay --
38:01
MALCOLM GRAY: So he didn't say "thumbs up".
All I was commenting on was your language -- it was a bit extravagant.
They reviewed the Indian report and decided that, no, that they didn't wish to take it any further.
You've got to look at the timing of all that.
38:19
LIZ JACKSON: What does that tell you about the weakness of the process?
MALCOLM GRAY; You've got to look at the timing of all that.
Nobody understood the depth and breadth of the problem until recent months.
38:32
LIZ JACKSON: The Indian authorities have now briefed their Central Bureau of Investigation to sort out the corruption in cricket.
Five days ago, tax officials raided the homes of cricketers Azharuddin, Mongia, Prabhakar, Jadeja, Chopra and cricket icon Kapil Dev.
(CLIP) : they met me this morning, and they said that they would like to have some more clarification….
38:54
They also searched the home of former Indian cricket official and outgoing president of the ICC Jagmohan Dalmiya.
But Mr Gupta has learned to be sceptical about what will be achieved.
39:09
VISHWA GUPTA: I have my serious doubts, to be very frank with you, because the reason for that is that the criminal mafia that runs match-fixing and betting is also involved in other criminal activities in India.
Not that everybody who is in cricket betting is also involved in, but large overlap -- by and large, the same people who are involved in narcotics trafficking, which is a very big industry in India, far bigger than the cricket.
39:37
LIZ JACKSON: Are they too big for the government to take on?
VISHWA GUPTA: Past experience shows that all these people have gotten away.
I mean, I won't --
I can't predict the future.
39:49
LIZ JACKSON: Two weeks ago, Vishwa Gupta was suspended for breaching his public service obligations not to disclose information he gained from his job.
Meanwhile, over in London, it's summer and the cricket season is under way.
40:09
Some Australian players have taken contracts with English county teams.
They're playing here at Lord's, the traditional home of cricket.
40:26
Behind the Lord's scoreboard is the clock tower, the headquarters of cricket's governing body, the International Cricket Council.
Four weeks ago, the ICC held its annual general meeting.
Here the delegates from the cricket-playing countries around the world are about to discuss how the money generated by the game should be split.
40:51
The ICC has just signed a TV rights deal worth a cool A$1 billion.
40:59
MAJID KHAN: If the game becomes tainted and the big names become tainted, less money will flow in -- the sponsors will withdraw their sponsorship from cricket.
So perhaps that was one of the important reasons for not looking into this matter.
LIZ JACKSON: That's why they swept it under the carpet?
MAJID KHAN; I'm sure about it.
41:22
LIZ JACKSON: Part of the problem for the ICC has been that no one country has wanted their match-fixing problems exposed, and every country gets a vote on what should be done.
41:34
As a result, the ICC appears to be incapable of taking a consistent strong stance.
When they held their emergency anti-corruption meeting in May, the ICC resolved that no-one who'd had any association with bookmaking could be on the cricket board of any member country.
41:53
Sri Lanka then proceeded to elect as their president Mr Thilanga Sumathipala, a man whose family business has been bookmaking.
Fortunately for him, the ICC is already backing off.
42:07
MALCOLM GRAY; If a man's been whatever in the past, legitimately, well, that's -- you can't stop somebody from their past.
LIZ JACKSON: So if someone's --
MALCOLM GRAY: Hang on!
MALCOLM GRAY: Now we're really just talking hypothetically.
LIZ JACKSON: No, we're not --
MALCOLM GRAY; No, no.
If somebody's committed murder and done the time you can't just hold that against him for the rest of his life, if the judgment has been done.
42:29
LIZ JACKSON: But given the state of cricket at the moment, given the crisis that there is that's resulted from betting and the corruption that surrounds the bookmakers in cricket, it will now be OK for someone to have been a bookmaker and be the president of the cricket board, as far as the ICC is concerned?
42:44
MALCOLM GRAY: Liz, I've already told you, it is a complex issue.
42:49
LIZ JACKSON: But as the ICC prepares to face the press at the end of this year's annual general meeting, they know that they can no longer just duck the issue of corruption.
The Hansie Cronje affair has finally forced the cricketing world to acknowledge that the problem is universal.
It's only been days since three South Africans admitted to being on the take.
43:11
IMRAN KHAN; For a while it seemed it was only Pakistan that was involved.
Now, it -- it seems as if India has -- has been involved in it.
There are some suggesting Sri Lanka is involved in it, because they are now starting an inquiry.
Australia -- involved in it and South Africa.
So, therefore --
And then there were some English players who were casting allegations, you know.
So, therefore, it's -- it's clearly a universal problem.
And that's how ICC should have dealt with it.
Now they are trying to do it.
43:44
LIZ JACKSON: The ICC has brought along its new weapon against corruption, a retired police commissioner -- an Oxford man.
It's also day one in the job for the incoming ICC president, Malcolm Gray.
43:59
MALCOLM GRAY, PRESS CONFERENCE: I'm pleased to announce the appointment of the ICC director of the anti-corruption unit in the person of Sir Paul Condon.
Sir Paul Condon originally was an Oxford University man on a police scholarship, rising to become the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police here in London.
4421
SIR PAUL CONDON, PRESS CONFERENCE: I've only been asked in the last few days to become involved.
I needed to be satisfied --
LIZ JACKSON: But Sir Paul will have no police powers.
No power to subpoena witnesses?
MALCOLM GRAY: No.
LIZ JACKSON: No power to examine financial records?
MALCOLM GRAY: Well, no.
Well, it depends what financial records you're talking about in that we have a resolution that all boards around the world have to cooperate with the ICC and --
44:46
LIZ JACKSON: But in terms of players, no power to examine the financial --
MALCOLM GRAY: No, not their personal ones, no, and that's the same with any body in the community.
LIZ JACKSON: Are you concerned that this will make it very difficult for this anti-corruption unit to actually uncover any corruption?
MALCOLM GRAY: Well, it won't be easy.
45:03
LIZ JACKSON: While the new faces at the ICC acknowledge the size of the problem, some of the faces haven't changed.
David Richards remains as the ICC's chief executive officer and he remains in denial.
45:18 (Interview)
During the last seven years corruption in the game has flourished.
You've been the chief executive officer of the ICC during that last seven years.
Do you think that you should take responsibility for any of that and, in view of that, should stand down?
45:32
DAVID RICHARDS: Let me say that what's been evident through that period of time has been a lot of allegations that have not been proven.
It's only been in recent time with proper processes that have been put in place by the boards concerned or the governments in certain countries where there've been the types of inquiries that have been necessary.
And I think it's a matter of great regret for the sport that some of these allegations have been proven.
But the vast number of allegations have been innuendo and they have not been proven.
46:00
LIZ JACKSON: But that's not really an answer to the question.
DAVID RICHARDS: I'm sorry.
LIZ JACKSON: When we were in the Indian subcontinent a number of ex-players and ex-officials put it to us that, in view of the way that corruption has flourished in the game while you've been the CEO of the ICC, that you should stand down.
DAVID RICHARDS; Well, I reject that because, 'A', it's not proven that corruption has flourished.
46:19
LIZ JACKSON: When I spoke to your chief executive officer, David Richards, yesterday, he denied that in the last seven years corruption in cricket had flourished.
Is he the right person for the job?
MALCOLM GRAY: Well, I didn't hear him say that, but all I can say is Blind Freddy can tell you that it's flourished in the last seven years.
There's no doubts about that.
46:47
LIZ JACKSON: The young enthusiasts for the game of cricket now combine that enthusiasm with doubt and cynicism.
And for those who grew up in different times, that hurts.
HARSHA BHOGLE: I grew up adoring Sunil Gavaskar.
15-year-olds today adore Sachin Tendulkar.
I got an email once saying, "Please, please tell me that Sachin Tendulkar is not involved because if he is, what is left in life?"
47:15
STEVE WAUGH; From my point of view, I hope it's going to be judged as the era of the great Australian cricket side.
But perhaps it won't be.
It might be known as the bribery and match-fixing years, in much the same way Bodyline was or World Series Cricket or the rebel tours.
47:33
MALCOLM GRAY: The thing that makes me angry is that saying, "It's not cricket" -- maybe it's an old-fashioned saying -- is now no longer true.
And that's awful.