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New Commission may dig but not find

Paul Martin

After last year's cricket World Cup Dr Ali Bacher, executive director of South African cricket, says he came to the International Cricket Conference meeting with a startling allegation. He told them that very reliable sources had revealed to him that two of the World Cup matches were fixed. The reaction of the men who run cricket? "Disbelief," said Bacher.

The former South African Test captain (leadership record: played 4 won 4 -- all against Australia) says he stands by his allegations, though he has not identified which matches and which players and/or umpire are corrupt.

What has intrigued him is that at least two eminent players have rung him up since the Cronje scandal to tell them about instances of match-fixing or other corruption. Bacher says he has told them to make their revelations not to him but to their own national cricket boards.

Given the inaction of the cricket bosses to the Pakistan cricket crisis, and to what Bacher says he told them many months back, is it credible that these same men have suddenly developed a real determination to (as ICC president Jagmoyan Dalmiya put it at Lord's) ''root out corruption in cricket"?

Bacher emerged from that meeting saying it would indeed ''restore public confidence in the game''. But two days later that hope, if it ever existed, is fading.

An analysis of the supposedly draconian new punishments for match-fixers and those involved in any form of cricket corruption, turn out to be little more than already exists in the ICC Code of Conduct, finalised last year. The punishments are not mandatory. "Five Years" is written boldly in the text handed out by the ICC. But elsewhere it is pointed out that these are the "maximum" that can be imposed. "Life Ban" means only that the ICC or the national cricket body can, if it chooses, impose a penalty as long as life.

The South African inquiry, though slightly more impressive than the ICC version, looks like being a toothless bulldog, full of slavering and growling but beyond those gums, not much in the way of canines. At least witnesses can be forced to attend by law (as indeed was the case in the Pakistani hearing).

Justice Minister Penuell Maduna was at pains to stress that the bulk of the inquiry would be held in public (again like Judge Malik Qayyum's). But those who would need secrecy will probably be allowed to have the doors closed, he added.

Then too he emphasised that the commission would find the facts, and nothing more, while the cricket body would impose its punishment. The United Cricket Board had clearly not thought through whether they can impose penalties of suspension from the game on people who committed their 'offences' prior to the new rules being announced.

The degree of real investigation and digging that can be done in just over a month, and with only four staff, when Judge King can get them appointed, digging out corruption will be a Herculean task. Much more likely is that various people will simply come and give evidence. But will Judge King slip incognito into a betting-shop in the wake of a famous cricketer? You can bet your life he won't.

He's a nice man who in his 15 years on the bench, always finds time to slip away into his chambers and switch on his small television set to watch any international cricket. He's an expert at assessing facts ... but can he and his Evidence Lawyer discover where to find them?

The South Africans are much happier these days. They have achieved the real objective: to internationalise the problem and therefore deflect attention from Cronje, who has meanwhile gone to ground.

The disgraced former captain shelters from the media inside his smart holiday home on the Fancourt Golf Estate (home also to double US Open champion Ernie Els). Though he's an avowed fitness fanatic, Cronje is too scared, embarrassed or depressed even to go to Fancourt's plush gym. He is keeping to his word to say nothing more. The day after he was exposed as a liar and a cheat, his former vice-captain Shaun Pollock paid tribute to the fallen skipper... and again when South Africa won the series against Australia 2-1. Was Cronje still so revered during that week through misplaced sentimental loyalty ... or because many of the boys are grateful that he's covering up for them?

Percy Sonn is a very upfront person, whom I have known for many years, ever since we were in the antic-apartheid cricket movement together in the Seventies. He is a lawyer, occasionally jokes about it. At the press conference yesterday he was asked whether the anti-corruption rules were retrospective. He suggested he is not competent to answer as he is 'just a cricket administrator, not a lawyer'. He also jokingly expressed regret that the death penalty (rather than a life ban) was not allowed. He swore when a cell-phone was interfering with a journalist's tape-recorder. He asked a TV crew to film him from the best angle because his mother complains he looks fat on the box. And Sonn rushed away from an interview explaining he had to "suck up to my minister".

It's all really an act. Behind it all Sonn is a worried man. He fears that the enquiries will not really expose the full extent of corruption in the game, much less lead to its eradication.

Paul Martin is editor-in-chief of Live Africa and Sport Africa