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Call to probe cricket's administrators

Paran Balakrishnan

Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, says that cricket's top administrators should be investigated as part of efforts to clean up the game.

"It could be the case that as well as the players it is also the administrators who need investigating," MacLaurin said in a hard-hitting interview on BBC Radio Four's 'Test Match Special'.

"There is a lot of money sloshing around the game, not just in betting but also in TV deals," he added.

"My fear is that there could be mafia-type organisations which are involved behind the scenes and that international players are becoming pawns in a power game," he told the station during the lunch-break of the England-Zimbabwe Test match.

"I know it is an extraordinary idea but it could be the case that criminal mafias are infiltrating areas of cricket. It is possible that our own game in England has problems that we do not know about," he said.

MacLaurin's remarks come in the wake of controversy over television rights for the ICC knock-out tournament in Bangladesh in October 1998.

MacLaurin has been at the forefront of efforts to push the International Cricket Council into taking a strong line against corruption in cricket and match-fixing.

He was the man who insisted that the ICC's top administrators should sign a 'declaration of integrity', stating that they had no undeclared financial interests in the game.

He had earlier said that the ICC 'has a problem' if it is found that ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya had intervened in the negotiations for the Bangladesh tournament.

ICC chief executive David Richards had denied that Dalmiya was involved in the negotiations.

"I have to look into information available and share that with my colleagues on the board and then see where we go from there," he told The Times, London.

MacLaurin also disclosed that he had recently met former England player Chris Lewis, who had made allegations of match-fixing. "I went to see Chris at Old Trafford. It was a chance to clear the air with him and let him know he did the right thing by coming forward with information. My impression is that Chris did appreciate the gesture," he said.

The Betting Scandal: The full story