President concedes ICC failed to act fast enough

International Cricket Council (ICC) president Malcolm Gray conceded on Wednesday that the sport's administrators had failed to act fast enough to tackle match-fixing.

Gray, talking to the BBC after the publication of the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit report on match-fixing, said: "The ICC and all the national boards...were slow to react. They didn't realise how deep and wide this problem was.

"They didn't act strongly enough or robustly enough or quickly enough."

The report said match-fixing could be traced back to the 1970s and had proliferated during subsequent decades.

But Gray, while accepting that some results may have looked "funny" at certain venues like Sharjah, argued the ICC had only been able to respond as the facts began to emerge over the past 12 months.

"We would love to act more quickly...our problem is it's a very large and complex and legalistic matter. We can't just have knee-jerk reactions."

The Anti-Corruption Unit was set up last year after then South Africa captain Hansie Cronje admitted taking money from bookmakers for providing information.

Also read:
The Malcolm Gray Interview

Mail Cricket Editor