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Aussie cricketers to sign corruption undertaking

Australian cricketers will be asked to sign a public undertaking stating they are clean of corruption before every Test and one-day series.

While the documents have no legal binding, moral and ethical standards placed on players were lauded as the world's toughest by the Australian Cricket Board on Friday.

Players and officials will sign the undertakings to remind them of obligations and provide the public a guarantee that matches would be played on merit, ACB chief executive Malcolm Speed said.

Speed revealed five initiatives to ensure corruption failed to take a hold in Australian cricket.

In addition to the public undertaking, the ACB resolved to:
- Appoint a special investigator charged with probing corruption in Australia who Speed hoped would have "very little to do".
- Call a meeting of other Australian sporting bodies to discuss corruption in sport.
- Immediately adopt penalties decided by the International Cricket Council at a meeting earlier this week and;
- Expand the ACB education programme to include every State cricketer, academy inductees and under-19 players, administrators, umpires and even groundsmen.

"We're ahead of the rest of the world in respect of the processes that we have in place and that we will put in place," Speed said.

The public undertakings were intended for "moral" and "ethical" reasons but not to create a legal responsibility, he said.

"It's an undertaking to the public that the game is going to be played on its merits," Speed said.

Australian Cricketers' Association president Tim May said the undertakings would also be a constant reminder to players against corruption.

Australian captain Steve Waugh said his players supported the ACB and ICC measures.

"I would hope the people in Australia know that the Australian team has never ever thrown a match or been involved in bribery allegations," Waugh said.

"From my point of view I have never been asked by a bookmaker to do anything regarding fixing a match.

"Every game I've played in, we've played 100 per cent - that's the way we have always played and I think the Australian public know that.

"We have just got to go out there as players and prove to everyone it is above board and still is a great game and a unique game."

Waugh said the plethora of one-day matches around the world had contributed to the game's gambling problem.

"There's some tournaments there that probably don't mean a lot and I think they can be dangerous," he said.

"That's probably where some of the problems have occurred in the past."

Waugh admitted suspicions about corrupt behaviour in some games he had played, but stressed never from an Australian side.

"There has probably been one or two games that I've played where you think 'maybe things weren't quite right in that game'," he said.

"But you never really can put your finger on it or make a complete statement knowing whether you are right or not.

Speed said Australian players Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, who were fined for dealings with a bookmaker in 1994, would not face further disciplinary action no matter the result of Pakistan government inquiry.