ACB clears Mark Waugh

Australian batsman Mark Waugh has no case to answer following a detailed anti-corruption investigation by the Australian Cricket Board (ACB), the ACB said on Tuesday.

The ACB's anti-corruption investigator Greg Melick conducted an eight-month investigation into allegations made by Indian bookmaker Mukesh Gupta that Waugh had received $20,000 in return for team information during a six-a-side tournament in Hong Kong in 1993.

"The Melick report confirms that Mr Gupta, despite making the allegations to the Indian Criminal Bureau of Investigation, was not prepared to have his allegations appropriately tested to determine if they had any substance," the ACB said in a prepared statement.

Melick said: "This investigation has established that, despite a number of approaches to Mr Gupta by cricket investigators, he remains uncooperative and has not provided any evidence to support his allegations."

ACB chief executive James Sutherland said the board met via a telephone hook-up on Friday and accepted his recommendation that no charges be laid against Mark Waugh.

Sutherland said Melick's report had been forwarded to the ICC's Code of Conduct Commission inquiry committee chairman Lord Hugh Griffiths.

Sutherland told a news conference that Waugh, 36, who is touring with Australia's Ashes-winning team in England, was informed on Monday of Melick's findings.

"He was pleased that the matter had finally been dealt with and pleased to receive the results of the report," Sutherland said.

Melick said: "Mark has denied ever meeting Mr Gupta and I made extensive inquiries and I was unable to find anybody who'd ever seen them together or could suggest that they had met with the exception of (former Indian cricketer Manoj) Prabhakar who also declined to speak to us."

In 1998, Waugh and teammate Shane Warne publicly admitted to taking money from a bookmaker known as "John" in return for pitch and weather information in 1994.

The two players were fined by the ACB in 1995 but the matter was kept quiet until it was exposed in 1998.

Melick said there was no doubt that "John" and Gupta were different people and Waugh has denied ever meeting Gupta.

Match-Fixing: The Complete Coverage

Mail Cricket Editor